


The Wine Dark Sea

by EllaBesmirched (El_Bell)



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Admiral Hux, Dubious Consent Due To Identity Issues, Enemies to Lovers, Explicit Sexual Content, Fantasy AU, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Mistaken Identity, Mutual Pining, Pirate Captain Kylo Ren, Pirates, Secret Identity, Slow Burn, Virgin Hux
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-02-12 01:43:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 27,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12948597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/El_Bell/pseuds/EllaBesmirched
Summary: After months of chases, false leads, and near misses, Admiral Armitage Hux finally has notorious pirate captain Kylo Ren in his sights. With Ren's capture certain to be his crowning achievement, the most flamboyant feather in his cap, and the end to an increasingly personal vendetta, Hux chases the pirate to an uncharted island rimmed by treacherous cliffs. When Ren's ship, the legendary Falcon, angles for shore, Hux follows, convinced the wily Ren knows a route through the apparently deadly seascape. But when Ren's ship flounders, Hux realizes the maneuver was only a desperate bid for freedom. Trapped between the narrow cliff faces, the Falcon sinks, and she takes the Finalizer, and every man aboard both vessels with her.Hux suddenly finds himself alone on a deserted island, his ship, his men, and his target all lost to the inky waves. With a violent storm looming on the horizon, Hux's only ally is the last person he'd want to find himself trapped on an empty island with: a very large, very injured, very surely and uncooperative  pirate urchin who tells Hux his name is Ben.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, y'all!Listen. Listen. 
> 
> [Trashcanparty](https://trashcanparty.tumblr.com/) and I. We did a thing. A thing for the Kylux Reverse Bang. It involves pirates, sirens, ships, storms, and magic. There's mistaken identity. There's romance. There's betrayal. There's action and power and basically everything I love about writing I got to do in this fic. Getting to collab with Trashcanparty has been a MAGICAL DREAM because not only are they an absolute angel, their art is tops. You'll see. 
> 
> Special thanks to Ajax for beta reading. <3
> 
> Please enjoy!
> 
> **If you're concerned about the character death tag, please see the below notes!

 

“We’ve got him, sir.”

Hux peered through the spyglass, the limping ship in his sights, and said, “Ready the cannons.”

Finn sprinted away to give the orders and Hux repositioned himself near the wheel to see all the activity aboard his vessel. The scrape of the canons being moved into position resonated from below deck. The boatswain was screaming orders to the men manning the sails, and, more slowly than Hux would have liked, but still more quickly than he had hoped to achieve, the _Finalizer_ was gaining on the ragged and battered _Falcon._ For the first time in weeks, Hux allowed himself a smile.

The wind was finally on their side. As Hux watched, the _Falcon_ began to tack inland, veering dangerously close to the sharp rocks ringing the island.

Hux couldn’t contain a vicious grin.

Finn appeared back at his side, a worried expression in his dark eyes. “Sir?”

Hux didn’t turn to look at him. He didn’t need the spyglass to watch the ship’s progress anymore.

“Maintain our course,” Hux demanded. “Follow him inland.”

“Sir--the rocks--” Finn stammered.

“They’ve been aiming for that island the whole time,” Hux spat. “He’s bluffing. He thinks we’ll be too scared to follow.”

“The _Falcon_ is smaller,” Finn pressed uncertainly. “If we circle the island, we might find a safer place to land--”

“Ren is a fox,” Hux snapped. “He wouldn’t go to ground without a hole to hide in.”

“Sir--?”

“He _knows a route,”_ Hux insisted, excitement cracking his cultivated calm. He pointed furiously at the ship with his spy glass, looming threateningly over Finn as he spoke. “ _Follow him.”_

Finn only stared at him, eyes wide and lips parted in fear. Hux scoffed in disgust and shoved Finn away from him, one hand on the center of his chest.

His voice boomed like a tidal wave over the crew. “Stay the course! Do not lose him!” There had been a lull in the activity when the men saw the _Falcon_ change course. Now Hux felt every eye above deck turn to him; he could practically hear the men below deck holding their breath. “ _Are you men or are you mice?_ Stay! The course!”

Slowly, the ship began to turn toward the island. The new direction put the wind fully behind them and the _Finalizer_ picked up speed, racing inland for the crippled brigantine.

Cliffs grew on either side of the _Finalizer_ and Hux gave the command to slow the ship-- they were still gaining on the _Falcon_ , but it wouldn’t do to go careening into the side of a mountain. That’s what Ren _wanted_ him to do. But the _Finalizer_ was fast, and she was agile-- Ren was underestimating her. The _Falcon_ may have been the fastest smuggling vessel on the seas, but Hux had the might of the royal navy on his side, the best technology, the fastest ship under the empire’s command. No bloody _pirate_ was going to outrun him forever.

Captain Kylo Ren had met his match. Hux would make him rue the day he’d ever crossed Admiral Armitage Hux.

The _Falcon_ was floundering. She’d taken a beating in the storm three nights back that was all the worse for the canon ball Hux had managed to punch through her hull a week ago when the _Finalizer_ had first snuck up on the _Falcon_ in the dead of night. The _Falcon_ had escaped, but the _Finalizer_ had been close on her tail ever since-- Hux hadn’t lost sight of her once. Nor had he lost sight of her shadowy captain, the man in black sweeping across the bow and waving his broadsword like a flag. Hux was going to enjoy watching Kylo Ren swing. He just hoped he managed to catch the bastard alive.

And then they were there, within range, squeezed between two monstrous cliffs that put them in shadow like nightfall. “ _Fire!”_

The canon mounted at the front of the ship exploded in a flash and the cannon ball tore across the _Falcon’s_ deck. The nose of the _Finalizer_ was inching alongside the _Falcon’s_ stern, as if she could pull ahead. Hux gave the signal to trim the sails-- the wind was screaming through the channel, threatening to propel them too quickly. The channel was narrowing-- there was no way they could pass through side by side.

Hux let the _Falcon_ pull ahead, let it escape the narrow corridor. And then they caught back up. When the _Finalizer_ finally pulled alongside the _Falcon,_ Hux searched for the man in black. He wanted to see Ren’s face when Hux finally destroyed the ship for good.

_“Fire!”_

The thunderous command came not from the _Finalizer,_ but from the _Falcon._ The _Finalizer_ rocked violently with the barrage of cannon fire and Hux screamed out an order of his own. _Finalizer_ was in pristine condition-- she could take it. But the _Falcon_ was one wrong wave away from capsizing.

There was an awful silence as both ships reloaded, as the _Falcon_ tried desperately to maneuver close enough to the _Finalizer_ to board her. Now that the sinking of the _Falcon_ was inevitable, Hux knew her crew would try to take _Finalizer._ He’d never allow it.  
Hux opened his mouth to scream another command, to tell the men to fire again and the _Finalizer_ shuddered. A horrible screeching scrape rang through the air and every man aboard who wasn’t thrown to the deck went silent. The cabin boy, clinging high above them all on the rigging, lost his grip and tumbled to the deck with a sickening thud, his panicked scream cut horribly short. Hux looked away.  
The men on the _Falcon,_ the ones Hux could see, went quiet too, mouths agape, staring at the other ship with their swords at their sides.

_No._

There was a vicious cracking and the _Finalizer_ bobbed like a toy boat in a tub. She rolled horribly to port before snapping back to starboard. Hux clung to a railing, using the crook of his arm like an anchor, and watched a handful of his man tumble overboard. _Finalizer’s_ tallest mast tangled in the _Falcon’s_ sails.

Pandemonium erupted. The two ships screamed as they were pulled toward one another, as the _Finalizer_ was lifted off the outcrop she had stuck on and the _Falcon_ started to pull her down. Pirate and soldier alike were struggling to separate the two ships, to untangle the rigging. Someone was cutting the _Falcon’s_ sails.

Without warning the _Finalizer_ was hurled to starboard and slammed, full bodied into the _Falcon._ Hux watched more men disappear into the water. One of the masts broke and crushed four sailors as it fell.

_No._

The _Falcon_ was sinking and she was taking the _Finalizer_ with her.

And then Hux was tumbling through the air, head over heels. He struck the side of the ship as he fell and he lay dazed in the water, sinking into the black depths.

A hand snagged in his collar, and Hux swam for it, kicked viciously and broke the surface with a huge gasp. People were screaming. The ships were on fire. The water Hux was treading was red, red from the sailor who had, in a desperate attempt to cling for life, grabbed him. As Hux watched, his dark head sunk below the waves and without considering his actions, Hux reached out and grabbed him, yanked him onto his shoulders, and kicked for shore. He sank horribly until he finally kicked his boots off, and then he was moving, just barely managing to keep his head, and the sailor’s, above water.

The sailor was big, and he was heavy, dressed in white like a soldier. Hux had no idea how long he kicked, but just when he was certain he could swim no father, he felt rocky sand beneath his toes. Gasping for breath, he crawled for the beach, dragging the unconscious man behind him like an anchor. He dropped the sailor the moment they were clear of the water line and immediately turned back. Maybe he could help--

Hux drew up short, mouth falling open. He just had time to watch the last of the _Finalizer_ sink below the waves. The water was disturbed with debris, with broken wood and floating barrels. But Hux saw no other men. He turned his head, searching down the beach. It was empty.

They were alone.

“ _No!”_ He lost control. He couldn’t help it. He screamed and raged and kicked the sand and when he turned around to see who he had saved he felt bile rise in his throat because it wasn’t a soldier after all.

It was a pirate, dressed in a tattered white shirt that he’d no doubt stolen, with a scrap of black cloth tied around his forehead, keeping his long dark curls out of his ridiculously kohl rimmed eyes.

Hux blinked and when he opened his eyes again, he was on his knees, hand fisted in the pirate’s shirt and yanking him off the sand with his fist raised. The pirate cracked open his good eye, saw Hux’s fist about to slam into his face, and promptly passed out again.

Hux dropped him in disgust.

The pirate was in a bad way, bleeding from a huge gash across his face that might have taken his eye. A piece of wood the length of Hux’s forearm protruded from his shoulder, and he had a viciously deep gash at his hip. He was going to die.

Cold fear gripped Hux because this island was _empty_ and he had no way off. They were _alone--_ _  
_ Without truly considering what he was doing, Hux dropped to his knees and started tearing the pirate’s shirt into strips. He pressed a ball of the resulting rags to the man’s hip, and then moved to his face, leaving the shoulder for last. He wiped the blood from the man’s eyes, laid a strip of cloth against the gash, and then finally, turned his attention to the shoulder.

This was going to take time.

 

***

 

He was drowning. He remembered sucking in salty water, reaching for something, anything to help him stay above the waves. All he managed to snag was the collar of a dead man, a cold weight pulling him downward. It was so dark below him, so cool and calm. The sun above him was so bright-- too bright--

Kylo opened his eyes and saw only night sky.

Unfamiliar night sky. Unfamiliar stars. With a moon so bright it hurt to look at. He turned his head and gasped for breath.

“Lie still.”

The hand on his shoulder was firm and commanding, but the voice was pitched low and soothing. Kylo obeyed, allowing himself to fall back against the ground. The pain faded.

“You’ve lost quite a bit of blood and suffered a head injury.” The cool, curt voice was unfamiliar like the night. “So don’t move.”

Kylo blinked and realized there was something cool and heavy and wet pressed to his face, a barrier blocking the white fire that was reaching from his forehead to his chin. He still felt it, but it was distant, easily ignored. Very slowly, he turned toward the voice.

The first thing Kylo noticed were his eyes. They were sharp and striking in the silver moonlight, a gorgeous, depthless crystal blue, like the bottom of the clearest ocean.

“How do you feel?”

For one vertiginous moment, Kylo felt like he was drowning again.  

Kylo forced his eyes to fall dimly to a pair of delicate, almost feminine lips, indecently pink against his white skin. The skin-- his skin struck Kylo next. The face was lightly tanned, spotted with almost evanescent freckles, but not nearly dark enough for a sailor of his complexion. The backs of his hands, his neck, were brown with them. And yet, the skin at his wrists, at his collar, was creamy white, almost shining in the moonlight.

Kylo didn’t understand. He traced the man’s tan lines and tried to make it all fit.

“Do you speak?”

His gaze jumped back to meet the man’s eyes and Kylo said roughly, “Yes.” The man had a strange accent, polished and cultivated, but with something rough and fraying at the edges, a hidden lilt that made Kylo think of salt air and someplace green.

Kylo had never seen him before, and it finally struck him how strange that was. “What happened? Where I am?”

The other man paused in his work-- he was mixing something, his loose sleeves pushed up to his elbows. “Our ships. Crashed.” The man’s voice was halting and as soon as he was done speaking, he looked back to his work.

“What?”

“We’re on an island. Our ships crashed,” he repeated, voice flat and emotionless. “You’ve been injured. I’m assisting you.”

“An island--” Kylo stopped himself immediately, the image of the _Falcon_ being forced beneath the waves by the weight of the _Finalizer_ burning itself into his mind. He was trapped. Marooned. The open air felt like a prison because it wasn’t sea below him, it was stone and sand. Even the breeze that played through his hair felt like a hot breath, a shadow of what it should be. An _island--_

The man in front of him was a soldier, a sailor from the royal navy. Red hair, posh accent, fine clothing-- Kylo’s eyes fell to his own chest. A navel jacket in bright, pristine navy blue with polished gold buttons and elaborate yellow piping was laid across his body, guarding him from the night air. At the sleeve was an insignia: Admiral.

“What’s your name?”

Kylo’s heart catapulted into his throat. He was injured, at the Admiral’s mercy, at the hands of the man who’d ruthlessly chased him across the sea for the last two years-- “Ben,” he answered. “Name’s Ben.”

“Ben? I’m H--”

“I know who you are.” Kylo tried to make his voice sound vicious and threatening, but it only came out scared.

The Admiral lifted his eyes, and leaned forward. He was holding half a coconut in his hands. “Drink this.”

“What is--”

Hux’s lips curled wryly. “Coconut water. You need to stay hydrated.”

“Why are you helping me.”

“Drink.”

Kylo drank.

When the Admiral lowered his hands and pulled the shell away from Kylo’s lips, he said, “We’re the only ones left.”

“What?”

“We’re all there is. The ships are gone. The men. It’s just us.”

Nothing had prepared Kylo for that. Nothing ever could. “No.” The Admiral had the decency to turn away and stay silent. Kylo realized he had lit a fire. “No.” Tears stung at the backs of his eyes. His men. _All_ those men and he was just _stuck_ here with a _monster--_

The Admiral rose to his feet and Kylo saw he was barefoot. His stockings were torn. His feet were bleeding.

He left Kylo to his grief, busied himself stoking the fire and moving around whatever supplies he had managed to gather while Kylo was unconscious. Kylo wept as silently as he could, hot tears soaking his cheek and wetting the heavy bandage he wore.

The silence grew. The moon floated across the sky.

“I need to change your dressings.”

Kylo turned a puffy eye on the Admiral. “Why.”

“I’ve made a salve for your wounds. It needs to be changed every three hours or so. Lie still.”

Kylo lay still and wondered if he’d died and gone somewhere… not good. That was the only reasonable explanation he could come up with for how he ended up on a beach riddled full of holes with Admiral Armitage Hux making him _salves._

“Is it bad?” he asked, afraid to move and test for himself.

“You’ll live, I think,” the Admiral replied distantly. “Thanks to me.”

Kylo laughed. He couldn’t help it. “Saved by the Admiral,” he said bitterly. “How _lucky_ I am.”

“Hux.”

“What?”

“Admirals need ships,” the Admiral replied, voice strange and strained. “Just Hux.”

“Hux.”

Hux nodded curtly and finished layering the pungent, viscous concoction he had created against Kylo’s shoulder. Cool relief flowed through him. “Now, try to sleep. You’ll heal faster that way.”

“Why are you helping me?” Kylo asked again. His words were raw. Devastated.

“Lot of things a man can’t do by himself,” Hux replied. “You’re a big man. Strong. I can use you.”

Kylo laughed coldly. “Use me.”

“Of course. Even a pirate’s better than nothing,” Hux replied evenly. “Now rest. Tomorrow, we build a shelter, if you’re well enough.”

“Shelter.”

“Yes, shelter.” Hux spoke slowly and clearly, as if he thought Kylo was very dim. “You can’t see them now, but there’s clouds; a storm on the horizon. I give it three days before it hits. We’ll want to be ready.”

He tugged his jacket higher on Kylo’s chest, and then positioned himself against the base of the tree they were sheltering under. He stared down the beach, out to the water, eyes as cold and fathomless as the sea.

 

***

 

Hux opened his eyes when he heard movement. His back was stiff from leaning against the tree all night, his skin sticky with salt. His jacket was discarded on the ground beside him.

Ben was up and walking around, one hand clamped over his shoulder. He was lumbering down the beach, feet dragging in the sand. Hux jolted to his feet and tugged his jacket on before sprinting after him.

“Oi! What the bloody fuck do you think you’re doing!”

“Getting away from _you,”_ Ben called over his shoulder. He tripped in the sand and then caught himself.

Hux buttoned his jacket as he ran. It was hot under the sun, but the jacket protected his skin. His face was already going to burn and maybe even blister without his hat to protect it. He wasn’t prepared to worry about his arms and chest too.

“You’re going to hurt yourself,” he spat in exasperation. Ben wasn’t moving very fast. Hux caught up easily and swung in front of him, put out his hand. “Don’t be a fool.”

“I don’t need your help,” Ben called viciously.

“You’d be dead if it weren’t for me,” Hux threw back.  

“Then you should have let me die.”

Hux rolled his eyes and jabbed Ben in the shoulder. His lopsided face went white, all the color draining from his sun browned skin. “That can be arranged.” Ben hit his knees, bare chest heaving. Hux ignored the surge of joy he felt at that. The only place a pirate belonged was on his knees.

But Hux still needed him. “You’re going to be in too much pain to move if I don’t change your bandages soon. And when you keel over in the middle of the jungle, I’m not dragging you back again. You were hard enough to get up the beach.” Really, the man was so large, it bordered on ridiculous. Hux had always prided himself on his height, but he imagined he wouldn’t look particularly imposing standing beside this man-- at least now he wasn’t actually standing.

“What happened to your feet?” Ben asked tiredly. Hux followed the pirate’s gaze to his torn and bloodied stockings.

“I lost my boots swimming to shore,” he hissed. “Maybe I would have been able to keep ahold of them if I hadn’t been carrying a bloody whale of a man on my back.”

Ben blinked up at him in confusion. “You what--”

“I _saved_ you,” Hux insisted. Really, the least the urchin could do was act a little grateful.

“You _swam_ with me?”

“Don’t get any ideas,” Hux snapped. “I thought you were one of my sailors. It was chaos. I had no idea who I was grabbing.”

Ben shoved himself to his feet and even though Hux stood nose to nose with him, he still felt like Ben towered over him. Hatred curled in his gut. He drew himself up to his full height and gave Ben his most furious glare. Ben’s wounds kept him curled in on himself, made him small. Good, Hux thought. No pirate should stand taller than him. If Ben was a sailor, Hux was a king. He wanted Ben to know that.

“Figures you couldn’t tell your own men from us scum,” Ben taunted bitterly. “Bet you didn’t even know their names.”

Hux slapped him. He did it without thinking about it, fury surging in his blood like a tidal wave. _How dare he_ \-- “I knew _every_ man,” he breathed into the air between them. Ben was staring at Hux’s face, pupils like pinpricks, eyes black with hate, and for one instant, Hux felt like he could read his mind. Hux had _slapped_ him, like he wasn’t even a man. It made Hux happy, a vengeful joy leaping in his chest.

“Liar,” Ben taunted, and Hux felt the tidal wave wash over him again, drown him.

Hux jabbed him on the shoulder and Ben screamed like a siren, hit the hot sand like it could save him. Hux slammed to his knees and curled hard fingers around Ben’s chin, yanked him around to face the horizon. “You see that? We’ve got three days _if we’re lucky_ before that thing hits. Any sailor worth his salt can tell you you won’t want to be on the bloody _beach_ when she rolls in. Your options are very simple. You can shut up and do what I say, or I can leave you here. Maybe you’ll get lucky.” He laid the tips of his fingers against Ben’s shoulder again, a gentle threat. Ben made a sound like a wounded bear and Hux grinned at him. “Maybe you won’t make it that long.”

Hux straightened, tugged his jacket into place, and started stalking back to camp. When he turned back, Ben was following him.

 

***

 

For the fifth time that day, Kylo sat very still as the Admiral changed his bandages. Every dressing change made him feel more like himself, more like he wasn’t going to fall over at any second. After his little temper tantrum, he’d had to hide under the palm trees, recuperating for hours before he could stand again. Hux stalked up and down the beach, dripping sweat and collecting debris from the ships. He kept dropping piles of refuse beside Kylo and then stomping off without a word. Kylo’s job, he’d been told, was to heal enough to help Hux with the biggest pieces of wood tomorrow.

When the sun was highest in the sky, Kylo saw Hux rip off his jacket and hurl it across the beach with a furious shout. Kylo wasn’t sure why he insisted on wearing it at all until, only an hour later, he stalked back up the beach to drop a torn sail trailing rope beside Kylo. All the parts of his chest that had been white the night before were turning a vivid red. Kylo chuckled aloud.

“What’s so funny?” Hux snapped.

“Funny thing for a man of your complexion to try his hand at sailing. Ain’t even fit for the sea.”

Hux snorted. “Says the man who would have _drowned_ if not for me.”

“Woulda been a mercy, going down with my ship. A bit of _honor_ in death.”

“No _honor_ among pirates.”

“Nor mercenaries,” Kylo spat.

Hux glowered at him. “I’m an agent of the empire--”

“Murderer,” Kylo told him, voice thick and surly. He turned his head to stare at the black clouds in the distance. “Killed all those men and didn’t have the decency to go down with your own ship.”

“You have your own captain to blame,” Hux retorted, red face livid in the too bright sun. “He steered us into that channel. _He_ sank our ships.”

“You didn’t have to follow us! You were mad to try to attack us there!”

“Didn’t have to follow you,” Hux cackled. “As if I could let you get away? You’ve no one to blame but Kylo Ren, sirens hold him.” Kylo felt his stomach turn over at the curse. “If you’d surrendered like men instead of fleeing like dogs you would have all lived. Ren was meant for the gallows but the rest of you were to be given a choice--”

“Conscription isn’t a choice,” Kylo muttered. “Just a slower death.”

“Better a slow death on the sea than. This,” Hux threw out his arms and screamed the word, ending it on a furious shout. He kicked the sand, hands balled into fists at his sides.

Kylo had heard tales of the Admiral’s anger-- his men had spoken of it with the kind of fear they usually reserved for him. It had reached them in ports and quiet towns, in bars and brothels. How the Admiral accepted no mistakes aboard his ship, how even the slightest misstep could get a man turned off at the nearest port no matter how far away from home that was. They’d all called him a cold sonovabitch, said nothing could melt the ice in his heart.  

But in reality, Hux was all fire. Kylo could see how he tried to hold it all in, how he tried to be icy and controlled, but with all his power stripped away, he’d screamed and raged and burned.

He was smaller than Kylo had expected him to be, and younger. The Admiral had been chasing him for so long, Kylo had almost forgotten how rumor spread on the waves, how sea tales turned manatees into mermaids and seagulls into sirens.

Some of it was true-- Admiral Hux had captured more pirate ships than any other officer the Empire had to offer. He sunk what he couldn’t take, imprisoned the men who weren’t lucky enough to go down with their ships and watched the execution of every pirate captain he’d ever set his sights on.

So it had been inevitable really, this meeting. Kylo had felt it coming from the moment he’d first heard it, whispered in the corner of a brothel by a half drunk whore: “Heard he’s setting his sights on the _Falcon_ next, got Captain Kylo Ren on his short list.”

“Pity that,” the second had said. “Heard ‘em say that Captain Ren weren’t too hard on the eyes. Always hate to see a pretty pirate swing.” The two women had started laughing and Kylo had decided not to go into any more whorehouses after that.

But, Kylo realized as he watched Hux work, he was just a man after all.

When next Hux stomped back up the beach to change Kylo’s bandages, Kylo handed him a hat woven from palm fronds and discarded scraps of rope. Hux laughed in his face, but, before he stepped back out into the sun, he jammed it on his tousled red head and got back to work.

 

***

 

Hux sprawled on a piece of sail that had washed up on the beach and tried not to think about his burning skin, his dry mouth, and his empty stomach. Coconuts could only be so satisfying-- especially when Hux had given Ben the bigger half every time. It wasn’t sentimentality that spurred him-- it was pure selfishness. Hux needed Ben’s strength if Hux ever hoped to have help with all the tasks he’d calculated would need to be performed before the storm hit. He fell into a fitful sleep, the horrible silence of the man beside him his only company.

When he awoke to once again change Ben’s bandages, the other man was staring at him while he slept. Hux scowled at him. “What?”

Ben shrugged with his good shoulder. “Sorry.”

Hux rolled onto his knees and groaned softly to himself-- everything hurt. He’d spent the whole day running up and down the beach, trying to gather anything they could use. The day before that he’d swum from a sinking ship with a man on his back-- a big man. His skin burned and his stomach coiled in on itself, and he hadn’t properly slept in two days now. At least all the work had kept him occupied, kept him from dwelling on where he was. What he had lost.

He silently reached out and peeled the salve soaked bandage from Ben’s face. He left it off this time. The scrape at his hip received the same treatment. He lingered over the shoulder.

“What is that?” Ben asked as Hux spooned the last of the salve he had made from a coconut shell on Ben’s shoulder.

“Lemon balm, lavender, and thyme,” Hux answered grudgingly. “Mixed with salt water and a touch of aloe.”

Ben’s eyes got wide. “You found all that here?”

“The aloe is in short supply but the rest seems plentiful.” Hux didn’t mention how strange it was, that he’d found all the exact plants he’d need growing in a little custer just off the beach. It was too strange, too unsettling.

“Where’d you learn to make it?”

Hux glared at him. “Do you ever shut up?” he snapped. Which was foolish because Ben hadn’t said much of anything to him all day.

Ben glared at him.

Hux finished with the new bandages and sat back.

“What about the rest,” Ben asked, motioning vaguely to his face and his hip.

“They’re fine now,” Hux answered. “No more risk of infection. Your shoulder is still concerning.”

Ben touched a hand to his face. It looked raw and red and scabbed, but not as bad as it could have. It wasn’t puffy and weeping like Hux would have expected if he hadn’t been able to find the herbs he needed. “But it’s only been a day,” Ben muttered, almost a little awed.

Hux rolled his eyes. “It was the salve.”

“You’re using _witchery?”_ Ben’s voice got loud all of a sudden, and he drew back like Hux had threatened him.

Hux felt a vein sliding in his temple. “It’s _herbalism,_ ” he answered. “I didn’t. Cast a _spell.”_

“How do _you_ know herbalism?” Ben demanded again. “How do you know hedge craft?”

Hux glared at Ben in silence. “Go to sleep.”

“My shoulder still hurts,” Ben said almost desperately when Hux turned away. “More than my face and hip.”

Hux turned back to him and sighed. Ben, he recalled suddenly, had used his right hand for most of the little tasks he’d been able to accomplish throughout the day-- an injury like that to his right shoulder could cripple him.

“The salve speeds surface heeling. Your hip and face were mostly surface level wounds. Your shoulder, however, was impaled.” Ben winced. “I had to extract the wood shards, make sure there weren’t any splinters left behind. The salve will help keep it clean of infection, and close the wound, but it can’t heal muscle and bone. That takes time. You’ll be fine.” Hux turned away again and laid back down on his sail. He stared at the palm fronds above his head for at least five minutes before he jerked up and peeled his shirt off. The loosely fitting white tunic was light and comfortable in the sun, but it stuck to his sunburned skin now, and was so filthy it scratched when he moved. Hux crumbled it into a ball and set it aside, only to find Ben staring at him.

A strange tingle twitched in Hux’s gut, and without meaning too, his eyes raked the pirate’s broad, muscled chest, his brown skin, all his little black moles. He had rings in his nipples and tattoos across his hips and shoulder. How thin Hux must look without his clothes.

He scowled and turned his head so he wouldn’t have to see Ben seeing him.

When he woke up, the sun was high in the sky, and he was, inexplicably, in shade.

Hux jerked up and hit his head against a piece of fabric draped between two sticks and guarding him from the sun. It was the piece of sail Ben had been sleeping on. Hux wrinkled his nose. It smelled like sweat and oil and salt and canvas. And a little like the musky scent the sweet smelling salve had drawn out of Ben’s skin.

Hux tore it down and looked around.

Ben was halfway down the beach, his right arm held close to his body in a makeshift sling. He was hoisting a huge piece of decking onto his left shoulder. Hux watched him drag it up the beach and drop it in a pile of other too-big-to-manage pieces of wood. He paused and scraped his hand over his forehead, the single beaded braid he wore in front of his right ear swinging wildly at the motion. Then he lumbered back down the beach again.

Hux tugged his disgusting shirt on and, very grudgingly, the palm frond monstrosity Ben had woven-- it may have looked ridiculous but it kept the sun off his face. Hux was stubborn, but he wasn’t stupid.

“You should have woken me up.” He was annoyed when the words came out half sulking.

Ben turned to look at him, his too-dark eyes narrowed against the sun. “You needed sleep.”

“It’s none of your business what I need,” Hux snapped. He realized up close that Ben had washed away the last traces of the salve from his shoulder. Like his face, it was horribly scabbed, and purple and blue beneath the wound. But it was closed. There were no red streaks, no white pus.  

Instead of arguing with him, Ben turned and stared down at the pile of wood he’d collected. “We’ve got a problem.”

“What problem?”

“We’ve got all this wood and nothing to cut it with--”

“My--”

“Your sword isn’t meant for chopping wood,” Ben said sternly, voice ringing with command. Hux blinked at him. “We’ll need it for meat, if we can get our hands on any. We can’t risk breaking it trying to pry apart pieces of deck.”

Hux stared down at the wood and his stomach sunk.

“We don’t have enough sail to make a tent, enough wood for us both to hide under, or anything to hold it all together. We’ve got half enough supplies for half a dozen different shelters, but I don’t see any way to put it all together. Specially if we want it to withstand this storm.”

Hux looked up reflexively at the dark clouds shadowing the horizon. They were blacker and closer now.

“Move,” he muttered, shoving Ben aside and sinking down to pick through the wood pile. Building a shelter would be a puzzle; of course some inbred pirate urchin wasn’t going to know how to put it together.

“We’ve got a very large pile of firewood,” Ben muttered.

Hux sat back on his heels and realized with crushing certainty that Ben was right.

“Fuck.”

“I have an idea,” Ben said lightly, voice self-assured and amused. Hux looked up with a scowl. Ben pointed. “Where there’s cliffs, there’s caves. We just have to find one.”

Hux followed where Ben was pointing and frowned. The idea of there being a cave system had occurred to him. But caves were shelter for more than just two shipwrecked men.

“What?” Ben pressed. “It’s a good idea. We pack up camp and find somewhere to hide. Hopefully spend the rest of the day looking for food.” He pulled a face. “If I have to eat another coconut, I’ll choke on it.”

Hux had to force himself not to nod in agreement. A day and a half of nothing but coconut was hardly a satisfactory diet.

“I don’t want to leave the beach,” he admitted.

Ben frowned at him. “Why not?”

“Look around,” Hux snapped, pushing himself to his feet. “Haven’t you noticed anything strange about this place?”

Ben shrugged. “What do you--”

Hux shook his head. “There are no birds.” Ben suddenly went very still. “And so far, no insects. You haven't noticed how quiet it is at night here?”

“I don’t-- I was just listening to the water.”

“While you were out, I only went in far enough to find those herbs. They were all clustered together. Which is. Very strange. That I would find those exact herbs growing all together like that.”

Ben tilted his head back. “You think we might find something in those caves?”

Hux nodded grimly. Hux was more than fair with his sword, but there was only so much he could do if they stumbled upon something wild. Nevermind something wild and supernatural.

Ben looked down at the pile of firewood, and then back up at the cliff face crawling toward the sky. “I don’t think we have a choice.”

Hux shook his head. Ben was right.

They packed everything they’d gathered into the torn sails-- all the rope and coconuts, the stones Hux had been using in place of a mortar and pestle, the filthy navel jacket, the filthier strips of cloth that had been Ben’s shirt, and then had been his bandages rinsed clean in the ocean. All of it was tied into a pack that Ben shouldered. Hux led the way, his naked sword in his hand, and envied Ben his boots.

The moment they stepped off the beach and into the jungle, things got even quieter, the crash of the waves somehow muffled by the thick trees. Hux kept his eyes peeled for fruit, and any herbs that might prove useful-- he found a patch of lavender almost immediately, and bent to harvest it.

“How do you know how to do that?” Ben asked him as he worked, voice pitched low like someone might hear him. Hux turned and glared at him. Ben’s curiosity was written all over his open, earnest face. Hux looked away.

“My mother was a hedge witch,” he admitted grudgingly. “She taught me.”

“I thought you were Brendol Hux’s son?” Ben pressed, and Hux felt a spark of fury dart through his chest.  He shouldn’t be surprised that Ben knew his father’s name. It was half the reason anybody had paid any attention to Hux at all-- Brendol Hux’s son, promoted to admiral so young, given a ship, surely only at his father's whim. It made Hux sick.

“I am.”

“So your mother--”

“Mind your own godsdamned business,” Hux snapped. He straightened from the lavender patch and stomped through the underbrush, heedless of the sticks and stones that were slowly ruining the soles of his feet. He had more important things to worry about.

 

***

 

Kylo frowned as, for the third time in an hour, he watched the Admiral climb a tree. He was sweating and panting this time when he lifted his hands and hooked them onto the lowest branch he could reach-- still at least a foot over his head-- and, with an impressive show of athleticism, hoisted himself up. Kylo, with his shoulder in a sling, was in no fit state to climb trees. Hux wordlessly started tossing down the strange spiky fruit he’d called soursop and Kylo scrambled to catch them all.

He thought of Hux’s thin arms and chest, curled on the piece of canvas last night, and decided what he’d witnessed wasn’t actually athleticism, but pure, unbeadable will.

He wasn’t sure what he’d expected when he’d awoken to find those oceanic eyes staring at him. He’d expected a spoiled brat, a horrible heir who’d been given everything and had worked for nothing. Someone like Kylo had been, a long time ago.

Instead, Hux had worked himself practically sick-- Kylo had watched him shiver in the night though the air was warm. Kylo had watched him haul himself into trees for food though he could barely lift his sword anymore. Kylo had felt Hux’s hands, gentle and sure, soothing away the pain in his shoulder.

It was that indomitable will, Kylo decided, that had sunk both their ships. That had killed all his men, and all of Hux’s. Hux dropped out of the tree and Kylo wondered if one could brain a man with a soursop fruit.

“This way.”

And Kylo followed him.

By the time they reached the cliff face, Kylo was beginning to feel like a pack horse. Hux had tried to carry some of the fruit they’d gathered, but Kylo had insisted-- Hux needed his hands free to use the sword. Just in case.

Hux put one exhausted hand against the stone and peered up.

There was something unnatural about the cliff. It looked more like a wall, a completely vertical, oddly smooth slab of stone that towered into the air. When Hux peered up at it, his eyes were glazed and exhausted. His lips were cracked and dry and Kylo felt even thirstier just looking at him.

He swung the pack off his shoulder and fished out a coconut, trying not to scowl as he handed it over.

Hux pulled a face. “I don’t want that.”

“You have to stay hydrated,” Kylo responded, trying to keep the wry smirk from his face, trying to remember that this man had drowned everyone in the world Kylo cared about.

Hux cursed and accepted the fruit, cracked it open with his sword in a motion he’d grown quite adept at, over the past two days. He didn’t spill a single drop.

Kylo watched him scowl as he chewed a chunk of coconut and tried not to laugh.

When Hux was through, he tossed the empty shell aside and put his hand on the cliff face. Kylo followed him deeper into the jungle. The silence made his skin crawl, so he watched Hux as he walked instead. He was leaving bloody footprints behind him, but he hadn’t uttered a word of complaint. His stockings were falling to tatters and he was limping like each step pained him, but still set a steady, unwavering pace.

When the silence became too much for him to bear, Kylo asked, “Why us?”

Hux was navigating a particularly nasty carpet of stone, tip toeing through the least hazardous spaces. “What?”

“Why us? Why come after the _Falcon?_ There were other ships, other captains…” Kylo trailed off and then grinned. “Woulda been easier to catch.”

Hux’s face went white with a flash of fury and Kylo was glad Hux took the taunt for what it was. The _Falcon_ wasn’t the most destructive pirate ship on the seas, but she had certainly been the most elusive. Hux could have made more money and gained more notoriety by ignoring it completely and going for sheer volume of ships taken down. Hux had been chasing Kylo for two years-- how many other ships had he ignored in that time?

“You existed.” Hux’s voice was low and livid and Kylo felt his own unruly temper surge for the first time since the shipwreck.

He smiled, bared all his teeth, and said as tauntingly as he could muster, “How much of your time did you waste chasing us? How many other _criminals_ did you let go just so you could get your hands on _Kylo Ren.”_

Hux’s bright eyes got dark, closed off, and he pursed his lips in a thin, controlled line. “Shut up.”

Kylo ground his teeth as Hux whirled and stalked away.

 

***

 

Hux put his back to the cliff face and waited for Ben to finish relieving himself. His feet hurt. His skin hurt. He was tired and thirsty and hungry and they’d been walking all day and hadn’t found anything that could serve as shelter from the storm. Night would fall soon. It was foolish of them to have left the beach when they did-- it had been at least noon. Now they’d been traveling for longer than there were hours left in the day. They couldn’t go _back._ Not if they wanted to avoid stumbling around the jungle in the dark.

A branch broke and when Hux looked up, Ben was staring at him with his dark eyes bigger and rounder than Hux had ever seen.

“Do you hear that?”

Hux glared at him. “There’s noth--” But then he broke off. There _was_ something-- birdsong? Hux lifted his eyes searching for the sound, and Ben’s face broke into rapturous joy. Hux had seen that look in men’s eyes before. “Ben--”

“Singing.”

Before Hux could grab him, Ben broke into a run, racing along the cliff face as fast as his exceptionally long legs could take him.

“Ben, no!” Hux screamed. He raced after him, ignoring his aching feet and screaming bloody murder. “ _Idiot. Pirate!”_ But _really._ “You’d think-- you’d recognize-- _fucking--”_

Ben disappeared. One moment he was in front of Hux, the next he was just _gone--_ Hux ground to a halt and turned to stare. They’d found their cave. A dark passage in the cliff stretched in front of him, but it wasn’t quite as black as it should have been. There was a light at the end of it, around a curve. Hux could hear Ben thundering along and after only the briefest of hesitations, Hux forced his legs back into motion. The cave floor was smooth and cool on his feet, but he still ran lightly, on the tips of his toes. The last thing he needed was to twist his ankle on a loose stone.

“ _Ben!”_

He bellowed in his admiral voice, the one that brought all his sailors to heel, that had had them steering their own ship into a death trap. His eyes hadn’t adjusted to the darkness, he was running blind, and then the light suddenly flared, the corridor turned, and Hux catapulted out into sunlight.

It was too perfect, a gorgeous little clearing in the middle of the mountain. A tiny waterfall spilled clear water into a deep, crystal pool. The grass was thick and comfortable and flowers and vines grew up the cliff face that surrounded them.

Ben was wading into the pool, arms outstretched. Hux lifted his sword and raced forward, bellowing, “ _Stop!”_

Ben kept walking, but the creatures he was walking toward stopped their awful screeching and turned to look at Hux. There were two of them, both with hair even redder than his. Their faces and bodies were beautiful-- ethereal, angular women with sparkling black eyes and pert naked breasts. But the arms they reached toward Ben with were feathered and ended in talons. The feet beneath the waves were scaled and yellow.

As Hux dashed forward, one of them turned toward him, smiled, and started to sing again. “That terrible cawing won’t work on me,” Hux threw back. He splashed out in front of Ben and the sirens stopped singing again, heads cocked and staring at Hux with horrible avian focus. Without the singing to spur him on, Ben stopped walking and paused, arms still outstretched. Hux elbowed him in the sternum and he fell down with a grunt.

The sirens’ faces changed in an instant from curiosity to fury. The one nearest Hux dove at him with a shriek, and he reacted without thinking, slashed down with his sword, pulled back, and then lunged for the other.

It was very quick. When he took another breath, they were both dead, one nearly cleaved in two by the slash, the other impaled on the end of Hux’s sword. He shook his head to clear it, disconcerted in spite of himself. Sirens had hollow bones; they were far too easy to skewer. There was something almost wrong about how easy it was to murder one-- a human man had weight to him, he fought back. Cutting a siren was like cutting air. But then, they didn’t have to be strong when their voices made men happily drown themselves. With sirens, it was never a fair fight.

Hux lowered his sword, gasping for breath, and the water in front of him wavered. It was white and sparkling, like the light was shining from the _bottom_ of the pool. Hux took three huge breaths and muttered, “What--”

 

***

 

Kylo blinked as the fog lifted from his head. He was wet, sitting a pool of cool water and Hux was standing in front of him, naked sword in hand and tottering--

“Woah!” Kylo shouted involuntarily when Hux fell backward and it was all he could do to get his hands up and catch the other man before he hit the water-- it was shallow here, with hard stone underneath.

Kylo dragged Hux out of the water and fell panting against the grass.

There were two dead sirens floating in the water and Kylo cursed as soon as he saw them. _“Fucking sirens.”_ Of course the island was enchanted. Of _course_ it was.

Hux’s feet were in the water, trailing blood. His sword dripped purplish blood and thicker gore and Kylo realized with an impressed jolt that one of the sirens was nearly cleaved in two. Hux knew how to use his sword, apparently.

“Hux.” Kylo shoved him gently on the shoulder. He didn’t seem to be injured, but resisting a siren’s call wasn’t an easy thing. Kylo had been so thoroughly unprepared, he’d probably gone sprinting toward them like a complete idiot. “Hux, are you alright?”

Hux didn’t move. He was breathing deep and steady, his face smooth. Sheer exhaustion then, Kylo realized. He sighed and peered down at the man who had caused them both so much pain and tried to decide what to do next. Hux was much younger than Kylo had expected. He’d always known that Admiral Hux wasn’t an old man, but somehow, he’d always pictured him aged and grizzled. What he’d gotten instead was a baby faced pretty boy who could have passed for a teenager were it not for the thick layer of stubble that had appeared on his chin and the obnoxiously self assured command in his voice.

Kylo sighed and dragged Hux into the shadow of the cliff face. Hux tore the grass in his wake, and Kylo winced, hoping the friction didn’t burn Hux’s back; his shirt was riding up. He wasn’t a heavy man. If Kylo’s shoulder hadn’t been in a sling, he probably could have lifted Hux with no more difficulty than he might a child.

Kylo noticed with an embarrassed twinge that he’d dropped their pack by the entrance to the little clearing. At least they’d found a cave. And an easily defensible one. Kylo recalled-- very vaguely-- sprinting through the corridor to get here. It had been narrow, not terribly high. Kylo could probably build some kind of gate at one end, close it off. If there were any more sirens on the island, they might have a problem. The creatures could fly in from over the cliff and surprise them. Not to mention any other number of flying beasties that could come calling if the island was as dangerous as Kylo was beginning to think it was. In the case of an aerial attack, they could always hide in the cave, force anything bigger than a man to attack them one at a time. Assuming a whole pack of singers didn’t just call them both out.

Kylo left Hux in the shade and did a lap around the clearing. The sirens’ nest was in the farthest spot from the entrance and Kylo was satisfied by its size that there were only two of them roosting here. They had a pile of debris that Kylo would have to pick through later, see if there was anything useful. Sirens liked to collect shiny things-- the last time he’d cleared out a nest, Kylo had found half a fortune in silver mixed in with more pieces of quartz than he could count. If it sparkled, sirens grabbed it.

Next, he examined the vines climbing the mountain. They were thin, but sturdy. Good for weaving. Now if only the water--

Kylo turned back to the pool and frowned. The water was tinged purple with siren blood and one of them was drifting deeper. If she sunk to the bottom, they’d never get her back and she’d ruin the whole thing. Kylo splashed in after them, dragged them both out. The pool started to clear almost immediately, which meant there was a current. It connected to a greater source, somewhere, under the stone.

Kylo nodded to himself. This would do.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen I just really wanted to post one more chapter before TLJ comes out. I'm just. I can't. I can't believe we're here you guys. I'm gonna cry like a whole fucking lot. 
> 
> That is all I have to say right now. 
> 
> ALSO! 
> 
> See the end notes for a short Character Death warning. >>

Hux awoke to the smell of meat cooking. His head throbbed and he groaned against his will. 

“You’re awake,” Ben said. Hux lifted his head and found the other man hunched over a small fire, roasting something skewered on a stick. “How do you feel?” 

“I--” Hux recalled sprinting through the corridor… he remembered impaling a siren on his sword. Then what?

“You passed out,” Ben said lightly. “I guess running around in the sun for two days straight, hauling broken pieces of ship and a man twice your size, and climbing trees for food all without fresh water or more to eat than some coconut will exhaust a man. Gutting a couple sirens on top of all that,” Ben whistled and shook his head. “You were bound to fall down sooner or later.” 

Hux sat up with a scowl. “Well, if  _ you  _ hadn’t--” He broke off, staring down at his feet. They were bandaged and, for the first time since the shipwreck,  _ not  _ throbbing. 

Ben brought the skewer of meat to his lips and blew on it. “All I had was the lavender, and there’s some aloe growing over there,” he motioned vaguely. “So hopefully I did it right.” 

Hux wiggled his toes. “You.” Ben had  _ bandaged  _ his  _ feet?  _ And cleaned them, it seemed. Hux could see the line of demarcation on his shins, where Ben had shoved his breeches up and washed away the mud and grime. “What is that?” Hux asked weakly. What was he supposed to say to a man who had  _ bandaged  _ his  _ feet?  _

“Siren,” Ben replied evenly. He held out the skewer and Hux realized he had three more beside him, already cooked and sticking out of the ground. Hux blinked at Ben in horror. “It’s good!” Ben protested. “Like chicken. Sorta. Or. If a chicken and a fish had a baby.” When Hux didn’t say anything, Ben rolled his eyes. “I’m sorry we don’t have steak or griffyn or whatever it is you got to eat on your fancy  _ Finalizer  _ but it’s perfectly edible. In fact,” Ben said, pausing to tear a chunk of meat off with his teeth. “Lotta sailors believe if you eat siren, their song won’t affect you as much.” Ben shrugged. “But I think that’s just an old sea tale.” 

Hesitantly, Hux reached out and accepted the meat. He supposed he wasn’t surprised. Siren blood was sold to noble women as an anti-aging serum, for either consumption or topical use. So it probably wasn’t  _ toxic-- _

Hux took a careful nibble and found Ben was right: it did taste like chicken. He’d devoured the entire skewer and reached out for a second before he realized Ben had asked him a question. “What?” 

“I said, how did you resist them? They don’t typically affect me like that, but they snuck up on us. We should be at the bottom of that pool right now.” 

Hux shrugged. “They don’t affect me. They never have.” 

Ben stared at him, eyes wide and round in the firelight. “What?”

Hux waved absently. “It’s just. This awful cawing. Really, they’re worse than gulls. I don’t know why you idiots have such trouble with them.” 

Ben bristled. “It’s  _ magic. _ ”

Hux rolled his eyes. “It’s weak willed fools grasping at the first woman they see.”

Ben made an incredulous noise and asked earnestly, “They don’t affect you at  _ all?  _ You can’t hear them even a little?” 

“I just told you I hear them,” Hux snapped. “It just doesn’t sound like singing.” 

Ben shook his head and watched Hux devour his second skewer of meat. When Hux paused and looked around, Ben wordlessly handed him a glass bottle. 

“Where did you get this?” 

“Sirens’ nest. They like to collect things. That’s the only unbroken bottle, but there was also a silver dagger in a gold plated sheath, and some pieces of netting in the nest itself. Most of the rest is just junk.” 

Hux peered across to where Ben had motioned and saw the destroyed nest dimly in the light of the moon. Beside it were the butchered remains of the sirens, spread out on one of the pieces of sail. Hux made a face. 

“We can burn the heads tomorrow,” Ben answered the unspoken question. “And the rest of the meat won’t last long so I suggest we eat as much of it as we can between now and tomorrow night. Try to get some of our strength back.” 

Hux nodded and tentatively sipped from the bottle. He sighed in relief. It was water. Pure, fresh, cool water. 

“That’s from the fall,” Ben told him. “The water in the pool is brackish, so I guess it connects with the sea underground. But the fall is fresh.” 

Hux peered over at the gentle cascade only once before he guzzled the entire bottle without stopping for breath. By the time he was through, his stomach hurt, but the blissful relief was worth it. They had food, water, and shelter. For a time. Enough to pass the storm at least. 

“This is a good spot,” Ben told him through a mouthful of siren. Hux blinked and wondered if Ben could read his mind. “The way in is narrow. I figure we can build some kind of barricade in case we need to protect ourselves. Fresh water,” he motioned. “And there’s a bunch of those fruit trees outside. Plenty of firewood. We should be alright here for a little while, but,” he muttered, pausing to chew. “We’re too far off the beach to spot any ships.”

Hux frowned silently. If they ever wanted to get off this rock, they needed to build a signal fire and keep watch. Hux peered up to the night sky, brain churning, and tried not let despair wash over him. His men were dead. His  _ cat  _ was dead. He was trapped on a horrible island with a partly horrible man and no discernible way off. He’d been so focused on the mantra in his head: food, water, shelter, food, water, shelter, food-- He hadn’t stopped to consider what they would do once they had those things. 

“Tell me, Ben,” Hux asked, mouth dry again. “Do pirates come to this island often?” Ben stared at him, his lips curled down in thoughtful concern. “Because when my men spotted it, I checked all my maps. All my star charts and atlases. It’s not on any of them--”

“Maybe you misread--”

Hux cut him off with a cool chuckle. “I didn’t single handedly decimate the Empire’s pirate population by two thirds by  _ misreading maps.”  _

Ben swallowed, and then looked away. He couldn’t seem to meet Hux’s eyes when he said, “I’ve never heard of it. And. The captain hadn’t either.” 

“Ren had no idea what he was sailing into?” Hux asked, awed and furious all at once. 

Ben stared into the fire and shook his head. 

“Was he  _ mad?”  _ Hux hissed. 

Ben shrugged. “You were going to sink us. Kill Ren and take the men captive.”

“So he condemned you all to drown instead?”

“They knew what they were doing!” Ben half shouted. “We.  _ We  _ knew what we were doing. He asked us. He gave us a choice. We chose to try for the island.” Ben’s warm, dark eyes were heavy lidded when next Hux found them. “We didn’t think you’d be stupid enough to try to follow us into the channel.” 

Hux shook his head in furious disbelief. “I didn’t think Ren would be stupid enough to sail through a channel he was unfamiliar with.”  It didn’t make sense. Ren had been reckless and irreverent and arrogant and mocking, had left Hux messages up and down the coast spurring him on. But he’d never been  _ foolish.  _ Not like that. 

Ben drew his knees to his chest and stared into the fire. “Guess we both made the wrong choice then,” he muttered. 

Hux couldn’t say he was wrong. 

 

***

 

Kylo awoke to a shout and a curse. He jumped up, head whipping around as his heart skittered back into motion, and found Hux staring at a spot beside him in complete awe. “What--?” 

Hux’s face crumbled.  _ “Millicent.”  _ Kylo's eyes dropped to the ground and landed upon a tiny ginger ball of fluff, curled happily against Hux’s leg and purring so loudly Kylo could hear it from across the clearing. Before Kylo could totally understand what he was seeing, Hux had scooped the ball up, and held it close to his chest. His eyes were wet. 

The cat--for it was a cat-- made a breathy squeaking sound and Hux's arms loosened. “My sweet girl, look how smart you are, did you find your daddy, you did, didn't you, yes, oh, I’m so sorry, sweet girl--” 

Kylo laughed in disbelief and Hux seemed to realize he was being watched. He looked up at Kylo with a blood curdling glare that was undermined by the pure relief in his eyes. The cat kept purring. 

“A cat,” Kylo heard himself say incredulously. 

“She must have swum ashore after the shipwreck. I thought she'd been trapped below deck.” Hux's voice was thick with relief and Kylo had to pause to allow the world to rearrange itself. Hux hadn't once appeared to give a shit that he'd lost his entire crew, but here he was, practically in tears over his  _ cat.  _ Hux had emotions, apparently. Cared about a small animal. But when placed against his disregard for human life, Kylo wasn't sure if that was a good or a bad thing. 

_ “ _ How did you find me, sweet girl?” Hux muttered into the velvet fur at the top of the cat's head. 'Millicent’ mewed softly and Hux finally set her down. She curled up beside him again and closed her eyes, a contented little cat smile on her lips. 

Kylo frowned. “How  _ did _ she find you?”

Hux was petting Millicent like she might run away again if he stopped. He didn't answer. 

Most sailors loved them, considered them good luck, but Kylo had always been unnerved by cats. Their connection to everything strange in the world was too sideways. He liked his magic in plain sight where it couldn’t sneak up on him. With cats, there was no telling which ones were normal and which ones were waiting for the opportunity to lead a man into a darkness he’d never emerge from. He wasn't sure which category Millicent fell into, but if she'd managed to survive the shipwreck and then  _ found _ them, he was leaning toward the later rather than the former.  _ Cats.  _

He laid back down and realized then how red the sky was. The day was just breaking, so he couldn’t see the sun for the cliff walls, but when he peered up, instead of dusky gray, he saw only red. He turned his head and saw Hux staring at the clouds with the same expression on his face. Kylo would bet Hux’s sword that Hux had felt the same chill down his spine that Kylo did.  _ Red sky in the morning… _

“We should get to work,” Hux said hastily, sitting up and only wincing a little. 

Kylo nodded. “Good idea.” 

They worked in silence, only pausing to eat and drink. Hux fed Millicent a bit of siren. They burned the heads and the offal and cooked the rest of the meat. “It’ll last a bit longer that way,” Hux had muttered. “We’ll store it in the cave where it’s cooler.” Kylo had nodded and had tended to the cooking meat while he peeled vines off the walls and Hux trotted out of the cave to pick fruit. 

By dusk, the air was still. Kylo could smell rain coming. He gave it a few hours at least. 

Hux was in the cave, rearranging all their stores as if he could somehow be more prepared for the storm that way. 

But they’d done all they could. Kylo was hot and tired and the sweat caked on his clothes and in his hair was making him itch. He took a deep breath, and unlaced his boots. 

 

***

 

Hux jerked when he heard a splash. Millicent was watching him organizing all their fruit into piles and checking on the truly ridiculous number of coconut shells they’d filled with water. She turned her head lazily at the sound and then looked back at the piece of overcooked siren meat Hux had given her. 

Curiosity got the better of him, and he wandered out of the cave, half hoping that Ben hadn’t fallen in and drowned and half hoping he had. 

He drew up short when he spotted the pool. Ben had in fact, wound up there. He was sitting on one of the stones that jutted out under the waterfall, had turned his face up to the little stream and opened his mouth. 

He was completely naked. 

Hux spotted his clothes in a little pile by the shallow end and felt a swell of fury in his chest. The least Ben could have done was  _ warn  _ him. A man warned another if he was going to be trotting around nude. Didn’t he?

“Water’s great,” Ben called. Hux lifted his eyes from Ben’s clothes and found the other man staring at him from under the waterfall, head jutting forward and neck bent so the top of his back caught the stream. 

Hux’s throat bobbed. Ben had the heels of his palms pressed against the stone he was sitting on, finger tips pointing away from Hux. He was leaning all his weight forward and Hux could see the water clinging to the muscular furrows in his forearms, trailing down to the pool in little streams. 

“What?”

“Get in,” Ben chuckled, waving him over. “We’ve done all we can. When the storm comes, it comes. We might as well make ourselves comfortable.” 

“Confortable.” 

Ben rolled his eyes. “Don’t you bathe?” 

Hux did want a bath.  _ Very  _ badly. He’d had to force himself not to consider how filthy he’d become, how stiff his hair was, all the mud caked under his fingernails. 

“I don’t bite,” Ben taunted. 

Hux’s upper lip curled. He wasn’t  _ afraid  _ to get in the water with  _ Ben  _ of all people. He wasn’t  _ afraid  _ of  _ Ben.  _

Hux tore off his shirt, dropped it beside Ben’s pants and boots and, careful not to put his back to Ben ( _ that  _ was a conversation he didn’t even want to entertain the thought of), started to step into the water. 

“Wouldn’t you rather wash those?” Ben pointed out, motioning to Hux’s breeches. Before Hux could answer, he leaned back, letting the water splash onto his chest now. His hair was long with the wetness, curls sticking to the black stone behind him. There was a light clicking from where his beaded braid kept swinging into the stone.

Hux’s heart, inexplicably, slammed into his throat. 

But Ben was right. He hadn’t removed his breeches in days. It would be foolish to bath while wearing them. With shaking hands, he peeled them off, wincing when they stuck to his skin. When he looked back up, Ben was watching him nonchalantly, completely at ease. Hux tried not to scowl. Of course, if a man looked like  _ that  _ he wasn’t going to be concerned about prancing around naked. 

But Hux liked clothes. He was thin and white beneath his uniform, all arms and legs that never seemed to fill out. His uniform kept his skin from burning; and the perfectly tailored lines protected him from more than just the sun. Of course, he didn’t look perfectly tailored any more. 

As a last thought, he peeled the bandages from his feet too. They looked like they’d been healing for days. Hux looked over at Ben in surprise.  _ Hopefully I did it right. _ Ben’s lavender and aloe concoction had done more good for Hux than Hux’s carefully measured healing balm had done for Ben. Hesitantly, Hux stepped into the water. 

Ben was right. It felt wonderful. The clear water was cool, the perfect temperature to leech the day’s heat from Hux’s skin. Hux waded toward the deeper end and sunk up to his chest, secretly eager to hide himself from Ben’s unabashed eyes. 

Ben stretched under the fall, scrubbed his fingers through his too-long hair, and then splashed back into the water. Hux felt all his skin prickle when Ben made a beeline for him, and then stretched out on the stone, half floating half reclining in the shallow end. Hux felt the lump in his throat bob again. Ben stared up at the ominously dusky sky and relaxed, far too close to Hux for comfort. He had a tattoo of the guiding star just above his collarbone on his left shoulder. Hux hadn’t paid attention to it when he was bandaging his right, had never really paid it any attention, but he did now. It was surprisingly delicate. Beautiful. Almost feminine in its design. He had more besides: storm clouds and lighting all along his right side, all the little symbols that told other sailors which seas he had crossed, an oddly delicate skull in the V of his pelvic bone with two crossed swords beneath. Hux could count all the moles on his chest, could follow the trail of dark hair on his stomach down to its source, could see his manhood bobbing irreverently in the water. 

Hux cupped one hand over himself furiously and looked away.

“I don’t think I ever thanked you.” 

Hux turned his head in surprise when Ben spoke. 

“You know. For. Pulling me out of the water. For not.” He swallowed hard and shoved his thin braid behind one oversized ear. For the first time, Hux realized he was wearing a gold hoop in his earlobe. It matched the hoops in his nipples. Hux had to force himself not to stare between the golden flashes; they kept glinting in the dying sun. “You know. Slitting my throat while I was unconscious or.” Hux stared and Ben shrugged uncomfortably. He was sitting in the water and it was so shallow it only rose to his belly button. His black bandana had left the skin of his forehead creamy white. He had beauty marks. “You could have let me die. And you didn’t. So. Thank you.”  

“You’re welcome,” Hux grumbled under his breath. “But I only did it--”

“I know, I know. You needed me,” Ben drawled. “Never mind that one man’s easier to feed and shelter than two.”

“You really think I’d cut a sleeping man’s throat?” Hux spat furiously, finally forcing himself to look Ben in the eye. “What sort of coward do you take me for?” 

Ben shrugged. “A man? Maybe not. But a pirate? Thought we were worse than dogs.”

Hux stared at the water cascading into the pool and didn’t say anything. 

It would have been easy if Ben had been anything like Hux had expected. Lazy and stupid and selfish and-- But Ben had pulled his own weight, had taken orders with little more than a roll of his eyes, had. Had bandaged Hux’s feet while he slept and made him a hat out of palm fronds. Hux had been trying to think of Ben as ‘pirate’ for three days, but every time he looked at him, all he saw was ‘sailor.’ A shipwrecked man, just like him, trying to survive. 

“How long were you with Ren?” Hux heard himself say almost distantly. He almost didn’t want to know. 

“Since the very beginning,” Ben answered somberly. “Since he stole the  _ Falcon  _ and sailed away from everything that ever hurt him.” 

“Hurt him?” Hux said sharply. He snorted. “He was a spoiled princeling too selfish to appreciate how important he was.” 

“He knew how important he was,” Ben answered. “And wasn’t.” 

“What’s that--”

“The Empire isn’t hurting for one less princeling. There are others. Nobody needs him.” 

Hux snorted. “That’s true at least.” Hux’s stomach twisted just thinking about it. He’d received letters from Princess Organa over the years, and her husband. All the same. All begging him to spare her son.  _ He’s betrayed the empire, I know. But he’s my son. His life is in your hands, Admiral. You are the hand of the Emperor. You can spare him. _

“What?” Hux looked at Ben absently when he spoke. “You were making a face. What were you thinking?” 

“His mother wrote me. And her husband too, sometimes.” 

Ben blinked twice, a shadow in his eye. “The princess. Wrote you?” 

“Begging me to spare him.” Hux chuckled cooly. “Foolish woman.”

Ben’s expression got cold and distant. “What did they say?”

“All the same thing. ‘He’s a traitor. But he is my son.’” Hux shook his head. He’d read every letter. Memorized each one. And then burned them all. “I never sent a response.” 

“You’re a cold bastard, aren’t you?” Ben snapped. Hux looked up in surprise. “She just wanted a little hope. You couldn’t give her that? Just a little hope?” 

Hux rolled his eyes. “Ren tried to murder his own father. He stole Organa’s flag ship and spent the last ten years pillaging and murdering and causing all the chaos he could.” Hux’s lips curled. “Organa doesn’t need hope. She needs to open her eyes. Whatever she thought Ren was, whatever little boy she sees in her head, that’s not the man Ren grew to be. Ren grew into a monster.” 

And Hux hated him for it. Hated how desperate both his parents had sounded in those letters, how badly they just wanted him to live. How could a man with a family like that go so  _ wrong?  _

Ben was staring at him and when next Hux met his eyes, he felt something in his own chest whither. There was cracked ice in Ben’s black eyes. Hux wasn’t sure why it made him ache. “You’re right. He did.” 

Whatever he’d been expecting Ben to say, that hadn’t been it. 

“If we ever get off this island, don’t tell them how he died.” 

“What?” Hux said sharply. “Why?” 

“Tell them he died in a fight. Tell them you skewered him on your sword. Don’t tell them he drowned a coward, that he took all his men with him.” 

“It doesn’t matter,” Hux muttered. He climbed to his feet and reached for his clothes, careful not to turn his back to the pirate. “We’re never getting off this island.” 

Ben didn’t argue with him. 

 

The storm hit hard and fast. Hux and Ben huddled in the center of the little tunnel, trying to find some shelter from the screaming wind that tore through. Hux watched absently as Ben started weaving the vines he’d spent half the day pulling off the the cliff face into thin ropes, and then tying little knots into them. It was pointless work, meant to keep his hands busy, and Hux stared away from him in a huff, arms crossed over his chest. They hadn’t spoken since Hux had stormed out of the pool. Hux had pretended Ben wasn’t there at all when he’d scrubbed his filthy clothes against the stone, tried to rub the grime from them. Now he was regretting his choices-- the wind made everything cold and his wet breeches and shirt weren’t helping matters. 

He sat shivering in silence until, all of a sudden, the wind died down. 

Hux looked around sharply and then turned to Ben. Ben paused with his rope work and peered up at the ceiling. “Storm must have shifted.” He set his knots down and sat up; Hux watched his eyes track from the top of Hux’s wet head to the naked soles of his feet. 

“Let’s start a fire,” he said. Hux didn’t argue. 

Ben lit it quickly-- Hux wasn’t sure how he did that. He’d sat smashing two rocks together trying to make sparks for fifteen minutes the first night when Ben was still unconscious without the slightest bit of luck, but Ben made it look easy. It was incredibly annoying. 

The fire was warm and welcome. The light breeze carried the smoke away down the tunnel. They could hear the storm raging outside, but they were protected from it, completely alone. Millicent nosed once at Ben’s hand and then curled up beside him. Hux glared. 

“You really think that?” 

It always seemed to be Ben who broke the silence. Hux would have been so content to sit in blissful quietude, but Ben insisted on filling up all the space with talking. Hux offered him a half lidded scowl. 

“About us not getting off the island?” 

“Yes. I do,” Hux said harshly. “It’s an unmapped island ringed by cliffs. You’d have to be mad to try to port here if you weren’t chasing an idiot pirate through a--”

“You’d be mad to chase the pirate,” Ben drawled. 

“Shut up.” 

Ben was only quiet for a moment before he said, “So we’re stuck with each other.” 

“It would seem that way.” 

“Hmm,” Ben hummed. Hux pretended not to hear him. 

Outside the storm raged. 

“Here.” 

Hux had been dozing against the stone, warm in the firelight. Ben had been right (curse him)-- he did feel better for his cleaner skin and clothes. He looked up when Ben spoke and found Ben holding out his rope weavings. Hux narrowed his eyes, about to say something scathing, when the twists of rope rearranged themselves and he realized what it was he was looking at. 

Hux stared. 

Ben had made him shoes. 

“This part goes between your toes,” Ben explained. “And you can lace them up your calves and tie them with these.” He shrugged. “Probably won’t last long, and the thong will rub terribly at first but. It’s something.” 

Hux, very haltingly, accepted the sandals. “Where did you learn to do this?” he asked weakly. They were thick and sturdy. He had no idea how long Ben had been working on them, how long they’d been stuck in this cave. He’d just been  _ ignoring  _ him--

“I can show you how,” Ben offered, his deep voice genuine, and holding just the hint of a smile. “I wouldn’t expect you navy boys to understand. But. Living on a pirate ship, you pick up a few things. Gotta be. Thrifty. Poe taught me how to weave.” Ben’s face fell the moment the name left his lips, and he was quiet, distant, when he went on. “We were stuck in port waiting on supplies and I wanted something to do with my hands…” He trailed off and peered into the fire. 

Hux positively hated himself for asking, “Who’s Poe?” 

“He was my.” Ben cleared his throat. “Friend. The first mate on the _ Falcon _ .” 

“Dameron,” Hux spat involuntarily, voice thick with venom. Dameron had been an Empire sailor, inches from being granted his own ship and with talk of fast tracking him through the ranks, when he’d defected with Kylo Ren. Fleet Admiral Hux had been particularly  _ disappointed _ in Dameron’s desertion. He’d been even more  _ disappointed _ when Hux hadn’t immediately dragged Dameron back in and deposited him at the Fleet Admiral’s feet. It wasn’t a new feeling. Hux had always been a disappointing son.  

“A  _ good man _ ,” Ben insisted, voice an unwavering bulwark against Hux’s disdain. “A good. Friend.” 

“A traitor,” Hux muttered. “Just like his captain.” 

“There’s more to life than serving the Empire,” Ben insisted, voice pitched low and fervent. “Were they all just soldiers to you?” 

“Yes,” Hux answered too quickly. He thought of Mitaka, loyal to his core, scurrying to do Hux’s bidding. He thought of Thanisson, flitting off to relay his orders. Perfect soldiers, every one. 

And then he thought of Finn. 

_ But sir-- the rocks. _

Finn, who never did anything asked of him mindlessly, who always had questions. Who pushed Hux when no one else would. Who’d tried to stop him from making the stupidest mistake of his career-- of his life. Of all their lives. He’d ruined more than just his  _ career.  _ Finn had been a soldier. And he’d been a good man.

“You ever think,” Ben asked into the awful silence that had risen up between them, “That we coulda been different?” 

Hux lifted his eyes from the sandals. 

“Or do you think we were always gonna be like this?” 

“Like what?” Hux growled the question so Ben wouldn’t think he was interested. 

“Heartless.” 

Hux’s lungs constricted in his chest and his fist tightened on the sandal straps. He didn’t know what was worse; that Ben had called him heartless, or than he’d said they both were. 

A million questions ran through his head and none of them were enough. Ben had made him a hat. Ben had fixed his feet. Ben had woven him sandals. 

“You’re not,” Hux whispered into the firelight.

“You don’t know me.” 

He could. What else was he going to do here? They were stuck with each other, hadn’t Ben said? Hux wordlessly held up the sandals. Ben actually blushed. 

“It’s not. It wasn’t. You’re no good to either of us if you can’t walk,” he muttered, tugging absently on his black bandana as he spoke. 

Hux shrugged. “Still.” 

Ben grinned at him then, a bitter, but amused sort of grin. His hair, rinsed of all the salt and sweat, was gleaming in the firelight. The flickering flames almost made his star tattoo dance. “Poe would really get a kick outta this. Us.  _ Talking.”  _ Hux stared at Ben’s star (better than the awful gold hoops at his chest) and didn’t say anything. Because Ben was right. None of this made any sense.  “You’re not like I thought you’d be.” 

Hux chuckled coldly. “This isn’t how I am. If you think any of this is even remotely  _ normal  _ you--” 

“Don’t have to be normal to be true.” Hux lifted his eyes from Ben’s chest to his lips (safer then his eyes) and shrugged again. Ben huffed in amusement. “You ever wonder why pirates are so loyal?” 

Hux’s lip curled. “What are you on about?”

“Think about it,” Ben pressed. “You ever got a tip about a pirate ship from an  _ actual  _ pirate?” 

“I--” Hux paused. He’d gotten tips from whores and fences and dirty dock workers. From wives and merchants and thieves. 

“Kind of atmosphere does something to a man,” Ben said with a shrug when Hux couldn’t offer a response. “You against the world. Wind in your sails. Just you and your men. You wanna see what a man’s really like, stick him in the middle of the ocean with a storm at his front and a gallows at his back. He’ll sail into the storm every time. Be too scared to bother pretending he’s not. And once you see a man face down a storm, you know him. Harder to turn on a man you really know.” 

“Do you ever stop talking?” Hux muttered, half heartedly this time. 

Ben chuckled bitterly. “Used to be real quiet. But I don’t see much sense in it now. You’re the only one around to hear me.” He paused, and then said quietly, “You and the storm.” 

Hux ran his fingers over the woven sandals and wondered what he was hiding from. Ben was right. It was just them and the storm. No Fleet Admiral father. No Emperor. No more men to command. Admiral Armitage Hux had never been without those things. They had always been there, growing up around him, bigger and more in focus each year, strangling him like overgrown weeds until they’d covered up all trace--

Hux laid down on the hard stone and wondered what he looked like, once everything was stripped away. No Fleet Admiral Hux. No Emperor Snoke. No Empire.

No Empire.

 

***

 

Sleeping on the cave floor was easier said than done. The storm was unceasing and Kylo’s fingers had started to hurt from all his ‘rope craft.’ Hux’s sandals had taken most of the day. He’d spent the evening weaving rope and tying knots. Hux had laid down with his back to Kylo and not turned around once. Even when he’d absently started tossing a small rock around for Millicent to swat at. Kylo kept eating bits of siren and knew he wasn’t even hungry at this point; he was just bored out of his mind and the meat wouldn’t keep. 

So he laid down with his feet pointing toward the exit and his head cushioned on his hands and stared at the cave ceiling.

He tried to think about Poe even though it hurt. He tried to think about every man aboard the  _ Falcon.  _ Everything he’d lost-- no-- gambled away. Maybe the pain was just too much, because he couldn’t focus on them. Eventually, his mind turned toward Hux. The one thing around him he didn’t understand. 

Kylo had always loved mysteries. The unexplainable fascinated him to no end, but with that fascination came the compulsion to understand, to search for truth in the hope that he could prove the mystery real. Truly mysterious. 

Hux was a puzzle. 

Kylo turned on his side, stared at Hux’s back, and determined to crack it. 

He was still staring when, muffled and uncertain, and without turning around, Hux spoke. 

“Why do you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Ren was a prince. Dameron was about to be promoted to captain and given his own ship. And I’ve heard stories of other men, loyal soldiers, honest merchants, pampered nobility just. Leaving. Opting for chaos and crime. Why?”

Kylo saw Hux’s shoulders scrunched up against the stone, held too steady in the space before Kylo’s response. 

“Why’d you become a sailor?”

Hux paused and Kylo could feel him thinking. “It’s in my blood.” 

“Why though?”

“My father was a sailor. I became a sailor.” 

“No wonder you don’t understand,” Kylo muttered. He sat up and put his back to the wall again, stretching out the ache the hard stone had put in his low back and ankles. Hux still didn’t say anything. “You ever been free a day in your life, Hux?” 

Hux scoffed derisively, but still only said, “What?”

Kylo grinned at whatever it was Hux was trying to hide with his disdain. “When we first took the  _ Falcon,  _ there was nothing stopping us. No one telling us where to go or how to be. What to eat, how to dress, who to fuck, who’s rings to kiss, who to bow to.” Hux had gone very still and Kylo wished he could see his face. But he didn’t need to. He could feel what his words were doing to Hux, feel his longing like something palpable. Or maybe it was just his own, spilling out of his chest.  “Just you. The wind. The sun. And the sea.” Kylo paused and peered up, but it was still only cave ceiling he saw. Not sky. “It’s freedom.”

Hux forced a laugh. “At what cost?” 

The question cut Kylo like a knife. He thought of all the dead men floating at the bottom of that channel. He thought of Poe. He thought of his mother. He said, “Shut up.” 

 

The storm raged for two days and two nights. 

And then it broke. 

“Hux.” Kylo laid his hand against Hux’s shoulder and gently shook him awake, peering toward the end of the tunnel. 

“What--” Hux jerked up like he’d been burned, looking around furiously, and Kylo laid his hand on his shoulder again to calm him. 

“Look. Storm’s over.” 

“Oh, thank the gods,” Hux breathed, struggling laboriously to his feet. Kylo absently took his arm to help him up. 

Hux’s face, when he stepped out into the sun, was rapturous. Kylo grinned. A tiny stone tunnel was a terrible place to spend two straight days. Hux looked up and saw him smiling. He lifted one red brow in question, and Kylo said lightly, “We made it.” 

 

***

 

“What do you see?” Ben called, one hand on the trunk of the tree. 

Hux was silent, peering into the distance. “Nothing,” he answered unhappily. “Just trees and cliffs.” 

“What about the signal fire?” 

“Out,” he shouted down. Ben cursed. Hux carefully scurried back down the tree trunk. When he reached the bottom, Ben held out a hand for him to grasp for balance. He accepted it without thinking and dropped to the ground. 

“This isn’t working,” Ben sighed. “We can’t stay on the beach unless we what, build a house? I can weave rope for days but I’m a shit carpenter.” 

Hux nodded. “With the proper tools, I imagine I could construct a passable dwelling, but we hardly have the materials.”

Ben groaned in frustration, both hands fisted in the hair at his temples. “So what? We just give up on trying to find a way off this rock?”

“I don’t know, Ben,” Hux snapped. Walking down to the beach every day to set a fire and scan the horizon was time consuming. To get there and back took all the daylight they had. And they’d started to pick the fruit trees along the way clean. “We’ve got my spyglass,” Hux muttered. “What if.” He paused. “Can we find a safe way up the cliff?” 

“What?”

“We should be able to see the whole island from that height. If we can find a safe way up, we can keep watch, maybe set a fire  _ in  _ the clearing.”

“It’s not a very big clearing,” Ben mused. “If we have a blaze big enough to signal with burning all the time it could feel like living in an oven.” 

Hux shrugged. “So it’s a little warmer.”

Ben shook his head. “I’m willing to try anything at this point.” 

“Alright. Let’s look for a way up.”  

They found one almost immediately. It was inside the clearing, to the right of the fall where the sirens’ nest had been. Hux wordlessly stepped onto the lowest ledge and reached up. Ben caught his wrist. 

“I’ll go.” 

“What? Why?” 

“I’m stronger than you,” Ben said matter-of-factly. “I can--”

Hux scoffed. “Your shoulder won’t hold all the way up this cliff.” 

“It’s  _ fine--” _

“Lift your arm above your head. Go on, do it.” 

Scowling, Ben jerked his arm up-- and immediately winced and dropped it.

“You’re bigger too,” Hux pointed out, voice only the slightest bit grudging. “There’s a reason you’re not the one climbing the trees.” 

“Trees can break. This is  _ stone.”  _

“With narrow ledges.” 

“You could fall,” Ben pressed, biting his bottom lip. 

Hux shook his head. “ _ You  _ could fall.”

“Fuck. I don’t like this, Hux. This is dangerous.” 

“If you have a better idea, I’ll hear it. But in the meantime.” Hux wordlessly started to climb. It was easy going at first. The ledges were thick and sturdy, and Hux was more stepping up the cliff face than climbing. At the halfway point, the rock face scooped inward, leaving a comfortable ledge for him to sit on and peer back down at Ben. 

“You alright?” Ben called, one hand anxiously pressed to the cliff face. It was a long way down.

“I’m fine,” Hux called. “And I have an idea. Hold on, I’m coming down.” 

Ben didn’t look like he could breathe properly until Hux’s feet were back on the ground. 

“So?”

“It’s an easy climb from here to there,” he said pointing. “Looks like it’ll be harder from there on, but I think I saw a way up.”

“So what’s your idea?”

Hux looked at Ben shrewdly. “Can you make a ladder?”

Ben leaned back on his heels and whistled. “That’s gotta be nearly seven fathoms.” 

“Maybe extra, depending on where we can anchor it.” 

Ben peered around the clearing at the vines he’d been stripping from the walls. “Yes. But it’ll take time. And more vines that what’s growing here. And all the real rope we have.”

“If we can lead a ladder up, we only have to make the climb once. From here to the halfway point is no harder than climbing stairs.” 

Ben looked at Hux, eyes hard, and said, “Alright. But you have to help me.” 

Hux nodded. They shook on it. 

 

***

 

Days were bleeding together. They wove rope. They gathered fruit. They hadn’t found any meat since the sirens and it had been weeks. Kylo was starting feel it. They’d tried setting traps, but it didn’t look like any normal animals lived on this island. They were foraging for food when Kylo found the river. 

“Hux!”

“What?” Hux’s voice was sharp and anxious and he came sprinting into sight almost immediately, concern on his face. 

Kylo grinned and pointed. “Fish.” 

Hux’s freckled face shattered with relief. “Oh,  _ thank the stars.”  _ And so some of the rope they were weaving for the ladder became a net. They used Hux’s weavings, mainly-- less dangerous, Hux pointed out, if their fishing net broke. Kylo agreed. Hux was getting better; the new strands he wove would be stronger than the ones they’d picked out for the net. 

They were grilling fish flavored with coconut water over an open flame when Kylo said, “Here.” 

Hux looked up from his work and eyed the length of rope Kylo was handing him. It had three knots tied in it, and a longer loop at one end. He lifted a brow. Kylo rolled his eyes. 

“It’s for good luck.” 

“It’s scrap.”

“No, it’s not, look. It’s an old. Pirate. Thing. Just take it alright?”

Gingerly, Hux reached out and pinched the ragged rope between two fingers. “Good luck.” 

“Yes,” Kylo insisted. “If you get lost or. Hurt. Or. If we get seperated, you’re supposed to untie all the knots at once. You pull both ends, see? And then you’ll. It’ll help you find your way home-- back,” he corrected himself stiffly. “Find your way back.” He stared into the fire and hoped the blaze hid the flames he could feel burning in his cheeks.

Hux set the rope on the ground beside him. “I’m not interested in pirate good luck charms or your foolish superstitions.” 

Kylo chuckled. “No, I guess you wouldn’t be.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“You ever dye your hair when you were younger?” Hux stopped what he was doing and glared at Kylo so viciously, Kylo actually felt a chill dart up his spine. He still grinned rakishly and said, “Thought not.” 

“Judging a man for his  _ hair  _ is--” Hux hissed. “I’m not.  _ Bad luck,”  _ he said furiously into the fire. Kylo had struck a nerve, and he couldn’t help pressing in a little.

He made a clicking sound and said tauntingly, “I dunno, Hux. I mean, look where you ended up. It’s not like you’ve got an excess of  _ good  _ luck.” 

“ _ I’m  _ not dead,” Hux snapped. “I never allowed my men to carry such foolish talismans,” he added. Kylo chuckled. Hux was sulking. 

“What about Millie?” Kylo asked, flicking a piece of fish her way as he spoke. “Cats are good luck,” he pressed brightly. 

“Cats are  _ practical, _ ” Hux informed him. “Rats are a nuisance. And anyway, I  _ like  _ cats.” He pulled the rest of the fish off the fire and grinned, the expression almost mischievous. Kylo’s stomach squirmed. “I picked her because of her fur.” 

Kylo sat up, mouth full of delicious fish, and laughed, “What?” 

Hux shrugged, smiled smugly. “The man who had the kittens, he said, ‘Oh, you’re a sailor? You’ll want this black one then, good luck that.’ So I picked--”

“The ginger?” Kylo finished for him. 

Hux shrugged and started picking apart his fish with his fingers. “Only seemed proper.” 

“You’re an evil bastard.” 

“I try.” Hux shifted, leaned back against the rocky wall. “I think I’m going to go down to the beach tomorrow,” he said carefully. 

Kylo nodded. The bodies had started washing up last week. So far, they’d all been soldiers. “Want me to come?” 

Hux shook his head. “Stay here and weave more rope.” 

Kylo groaned. But Hux was right. They still needed more. 

“If there’s anything to take care of. I. Can handle it alone.” 

Kylo nodded. He knew Hux was looking for Finn. They’d found three bodies so far, and each time, Hux had seemed to relax a little when he realized whose bloated face he was looking at. Kylo understood. He knew Poe was floating on the bottom of the ocean, but the idea of seeing him like that made Kylo sick to his stomach. Poe wouldn’t want a real burial anyway. He’d want to be in the water, drifting with the waves. 

“If I find one of. One of yours.” 

“Leave him,” Kylo said stiffly. “I’ll do it.” 

 

There were no bodies on the beach today. Hux sighed with relief. He’d spent the whole walk down dreading what he might find. He’d never considered himself a squeamish man, but finding the bloated, decaying corpses of his sailors took a toll on him. Last time, they’d found Thanisson. Hux wasn’t sure how he’d handle it if Mitaka or Finn ever washed up. 

There was new debris today. A piece of mast had been thrown onto the beach last night by the tiny storm that rolled in after they retreated to the cave to sleep. With it, came a huge swath of torn and mossy sail, and more rigging than they’d yet found. Hux untangled the wet, seaweed-draped rope and tried not to let his excitement show even though there was no one around to see. There was enough here-- and already knotted into netting in some places-- that they’d need to make a third less rope than they’d calculated. Ben would be ecstatic. 

The thought made Hux smile; they so rarely had good news. Hux couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so excited about  _ fish.  _ Last night’s meal had left him feeling energized, with a rare burst of optimism. Weaving the rope was helpful-- having a goal to work toward. But Hux knew an end would eventually come. He would eventually climb back up that cliff, and then what? 

They’d light a fire. They’d stare out to sea. They’d wait. 

At least, Hux mused as he folded the sail and rope into a makeshift pack that he could sling over his shoulders, the company could have been worse. Certainly, he would have prefered to have been shipwrecked with one of his own men. But, he supposed there were worse pirates than Ben.

He didn’t linger on the beach. It would be slow going back-- the sail and rope were heavy. He watched his feet as he walked, mind absently looping on an old sea shanty Ben had been singing the night before while he washed under the fall.  _ As I was a-walking one morning by chance I heard a maid making her moan. I asked why she sighed, and she sadly replied 'Alas! I must live all alone, alone. Alas! I must live all alone.’  _ Hux would never admit it outloud, but Ben had a beautiful voice-- a rich, simmering bass that occasionally swelled like summer thunder. 

Hux paused, Ben’s voice still in his head, and swung the sail off his shoulders with a groan of relief, peering around. The trees here were thicker than they should be.  _ But now all in vain I must sigh and complain, for my true love has left me alone, alone, for my true love has left me alone.  _ He didn’t realize he’d been humming until he stopped. The silence was overwhelming. It was always quiet on the island, but this was more-- it was darker too. 

Hux looked around, heart suddenly hammering in his chest and changed direction. He’d gone too far east, he guessed. He’d just loop back. He’d made the trip plenty of times at this point. He couldn’t be far off the trail. But really it was too quiet. “Come back from sea, my dear Johnny, to me,” he muttered under his breath. “And make me a bride of your own. Or else for your sake my--” 

A twig snapped. Hux whirled in the direction of the sound but there was nothing there. “Ben?” 

No answer. 

“You’re being foolish, Armitage,” he muttered out loud. His own voice grounded him. He  _ was _ being foolish. He and Ben just hadn’t been more than calling distance apart since the wreck. His mind was playing tricks on him. He started singing again, so softly it was more of a whisper. Really, it was just Ben’s voice playing in his head. “Or else for your sake my poor heart it will break and here I shall die all alone, alone, and here I shall die all a--”

“Alone?” 

Hux’s blood chilled in his veins. Because the deep, rattling voice that suddenly reverberated all around him wasn’t Ben’s.

It wasn’t even human. 

 

***

 

Kylo watched the sun set and tried not to panic. Hux had gotten held up on the beach. He was burying his men. He was collecting fruit. He was--

Millicent yowled twice and rubbed against Kylo’s legs where he stood in the cave entrance, peering out into the jungle. Kylo jumped at the harsh noise. She wove between his legs again, and Kylo said, “He’s fine. I’m sure he’s fine.” The cat wailed again. “I gave him knots!” Kylo protested. “I’d know if he was. If something was wrong.” Unless he hadn’t gotten to pull the knots. Unless he’d fallen, or gotten swept out to sea somehow, or attacked--

“He’s fine,” Kylo reassured them both out loud. “Hux can take care of himself.” 

Millicent sat just outside the cave entrance, glared at Kylo, and began a litany of mewling so pitiful Kylo thought about checking to make sure  _ she  _ was alright. 

“It’s pitch black out there,” he told her. “I’d never make it down to the beach. It would be idiotic to go bumbling around in the dark.” Millie could not be consoled. Because it was pitch black. Hux was alone out there in the dark. Maybe hurt. Maybe lost. Maybe just late, but it couldn’t hurt for Kylo to go meet him, could it? 

Kylo grabbed the sirens’ dagger and vaulted into the shadows. Millicent stuck close by, always just out of tripping range. 

Kylo ran the whole way to the beach, calling Hux’s name as he went, bellowing into the darkness like a man with a death wish. He arrived on the moon drenched beach with no incident, and put his hands on his knees to gasp for breath the moment he broke through the trees. It wasn’t a short trip. 

“Hux!” The call came out more gasp than shout. Millicent yowled at the moon. 

But the beach was empty. 

“Fuck.  _ Fuck! Hux!” _

He received no response. The island was silent. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Minor Character death: 
> 
> Hux and Kylo find the decaying bodies of a few of Hux's sailors. One of them is Thanisson. :<


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y'all! 
> 
> First, all our apologies for the slow update! Trashcanparty and I have both been VERY busy for the last few weeks but we're back now with some more story for you! I'll probably post the next update later this week to make up for the gap! <3 This chapter was one of my FAVORITES to write-- I mean, you'll see why, but suffice it to say as a fantasy writer, I was in my ELEMENT here and I really hope you enjoy! 
> 
> Also all my thanks to Ajax for helping me beta this today! I've been SO SICK and I'm not sure I would have trusted my fuzzy brain to handle that without her. Thanks bb ily

Hux rolled his tongue around in his mouth and tried not to think about how thirsty he was. It wasn’t hard-- his horribly throbbing thigh was incredibly distracting.

He knew without opening his eyes that this was very bad. His head pulsed from… from what was rather fuzzy-- had he been hit? Or was it-- his leg was sticky and too hot-- had it been blood loss?

He was wedged against thick bars, stuck upright with his back pressed against them. So a cage. He was stuck in a cage. When he finally opened his eyes, he wished he hadn’t. He was indeed in a cage, dangling at least three fathoms above the ground. One leg was bent awkwardly under him and the other-- Hux couldn’t think about the other right now. Instead, he delicately shifted, unwinding his good leg and stretching out-- his foot dangled outside the cage now, but that was, at least marginally, more comfortable.

He was in another cave, but judging by the position of the morning sun shining at the entrance, this cave was on the other side of the island. And Hux had been unconscious for hours-- he’d been attacked just as the sun was setting.

_Attacked--_

Hux sat up so quickly, he bumped his head on the top of the cage; he had to hunch over or slouch down to fit. Winding one hand around a wooden bar, he leaned forward for a better view of the cave.

His captor came into view immediately, stretched out on the ground below emitting snores that sounded like distant thunder. He was sprawled in the corner on a huge pile of half rotted animal skins. The whole cave smelled like the cyclops-- like rotting meat and overwhelming body odor. Hux had to clamp a hand over his mouth to keep from vomiting. That _thing_ had bitten him. It’s _teeth_ had torn open Hux’s _thigh._

Once the thought fully arose, Hux couldn’t be rid of it-- he had to look down, to see the awful tears in his flesh, already red and swollen. If he lived for more than a day or two (which was seeming less and less likely) he’d be in so much pain he’d wish he was dead. One of his men had been bitten by a shark once, a freak occurrence that left the man with a flap of skin hanging from his arm and a festering infection that took hold after two days. They’d had to cut his arm off.

Hux’s bite was located high on his thigh, at the thickest part of his leg.

 _If_ he managed to get out of this cage, and _if_ he managed to get back to Ben, he wouldn’t survive an amputation on this hellscape of an island. The thought of even trying--

No. He wouldn’t think about that. His leg was a problem, but one he would have to deal with after he figured out how to get out of here.

He’d dropped his sword in the assault; he’d left the knife with Ben. All Hux had was the little length of rope Ben had given him the night before. For _good luck,_ he scoffed. But…

He eyed the wooden bars of his cage. The wood was old and rotten-- he was surprised the whole thing hadn’t crashed to the ground from his weight yet. If he could remove just one slat, he might be able to shimmy out… It was a long way down, but he was fairly certain the fall wouldn’t kill him. It would just hurt like a sonovabitch. If he rolled he might be able to avoid breaking any bones…  
Hux allowed himself one single sigh to quell the panic in his chest. Just one. Then he pulled out the length of rope, fingering the three knots. Ben was so fond of knotting rope-- it was almost like a compulsion. Hux only partly understood. Days on the island could get long and tedious but Hux wasn’t sure how knotting rope like it was his job (well, other than the rope ladder they had been working on) broke up the tedium in the slightest.

Hux would be stuck here, in all likelihood. Probably devoured once the cyclops woke up-- or boiled in soup as it had promised after it ‘tasted’ Hux’s thigh, he recalled with a wince. The probability of escaping this mess was, by Hux’s calculations, incredibly low.

Ben would be all alone.

Hux ignored the way his whole body pulsed in sorrow at that thought. He ignored it, and instead, tugged apart the knots, looped the rope around a groove in the weakest looking slat, and started to saw.  

 

Kylo was following Millicent. She’d started on the beach, circling his legs, yowling into the salt air, and then angling back toward the jungle. When Kylo finally got the hint and followed her in, she dashed ahead of him, always just out of reach, but just within sight.

That’s how he found Hux’s sword.

It was unsheathed and bloody, lying discarded on the ground beside a pile of soggy canvas and rope. Kylo felt his heart plummet into his gut. Something big had come through here. Something monstrous enough to uproot palm trees and carve wide swaths through the brush. The sword was lying in the center of a wet divot that look suspiciously like a footprint. Then he spotted the blood. Steady trickles disappeared into the jungle in a thin but still concerning line.

Millicent sat beside Hux’s sword, peered up at Kylo, and cried.

He lifted the sword and realized his hands were shaking when he saw the tip wobble in the dirt-- the handle was bloody.

Something had attacked Hux. Something big.

He crashed into the brush, sprinting as fast as he could through the pathway left by whatever had attacked Hux, when a soft breeze brushed his cheek, flowing perpendicular to the wind rolling across the island. Kylo took a deep breath, smelled lavender and salty sweat, and doubled his pace.

 

Sweat dripped off Hux’s nose as he worked. The wooden slat finally, finally broke off in his hand-- but his little length of rope was only held together by a few threads. He’d have to come up with another way to break another--

“Hux!”

Hux jerked in his little cage and it creaked ominously.

Ben was staring at him from the mouth of the cave, calling to him in a stage whisper. He had Hux’s sword. Hux reflexively threw his weight forward, pressed his face between the slats for a better look. In all his calculations, he hadn’t once considered that Ben would _come find him._

The little cage swung and Hux pressed a finger to his lips before pointing down at the sleeping cyclops.

Ben shrugged his shoulders and wrinkled his nose, an annoyed little jerk that told Hux, _Of course I see it, how could I possibly miss it?_

Ben carefully stole forward, tiptoeing with surprising agility for a man of his size, and hissed up as quietly as he could, “Are you hurt?”

“It. Bit me,” Hux mumbled back, growing queasy just from having to voice the issue.

“How do I get you down from there?”

“If I knew how to get down do you think I’d still be here?” Hux snapped.

Ben’s eyes flashed. “How’d it put you _in_ in the first place?”

“I imagine it stood up and stuck me in! I’m afraid I wasn’t _conscious_ for that part!”

“Well, stay quiet. I’ll find a way up. Or something.”

“That’s very reassuring!” Hux couldn’t resist hissing back. “You--”

He fell silent abruptly. Ben suddenly got very still.

The snoring had stopped.

Hux twisted in his little cage just in time to watch the cyclops haul itself into a sitting position and peer furiously around the cave. When its eye fell on Ben, it bared its teeth and growled, hit them both with a wave of putrid stench. Hux’s eyes actually watered.

Then it said, “Who are you?”

Ben’s eyes went wide and he answered far too quickly, “Me? I’m nobody. Just. Just, looking for my friend here, is all. You stuck him in a cage and I’d like him back.” His voice got stronger as he spoke and Hux wondered if the cyclops would at least kill them before it boiled them up.

“Don’t look like nobody. Look like more soup.”

“Soup?”

“Yes, apparently men make very good soup stock,” Hux hissed down. Ben wasn’t exactly helping matters.

“Oh.” Ben clasped his hand behind his back, sword partially hidden from view, and said so casually it made Hux’s eye twitch, “Well, we don’t particularly want to be soup so if you could just let him down, we’ll be on our way.”  

The cyclops laughed. The sound made Hux’s skin prickle, and his eyes watered again with the stench, but Ben only smiled politely as it climbed to its feet and took two huge steps forward. Ben’s head fell back on his neck as he looked up at it. Hux pressed himself to the opposite side of the cage-- the cyclops was almost close enough that he could reach out and touch it if he made the cage swing a little. Hux was level with its shoulders and it made his head spin to consider how tall, how enormous the monster was. Hux had heard tales and seen drawings of cyclopes before, but the reality was stanchly more starteling.

“You very funny soup,” it told Ben, bending down with its hands on its knees.

“You’re right,” Ben told it. “Wouldn’t taste right at all. Best just let him down.”

The cyclops laughed again and pointed at Hux. “Already taste that soup. It good soup.”

The air in the cave shifted. Hux couldn’t name exactly what it was, but as the cyclops peered down at Ben, and Ben peered up at it, Hux could suddenly tell that neither of them was amused anymore.

Ben said, “Let him go. Now.”

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, you idiot?” Hux hissed out of the corner of his mouth as the cyclops responded with a huge booming laugh.

Then it reached out and smacked Ben so hard his body hit the cave wall. Hux screamed his name but it still wasn’t enough to drown out the horrible thud he made as he slammed into the stone.

“You be soup first,” the cyclops said to the crumbled man on the floor below. “He be soup later.”

Hux clapped his hands to his mouth, suddenly, inexplicably, sick to his stomach. Ben wasn’t moving. He was lying so awkwardly and he wasn’t moving at all--

Hux was so focused on the horrible position Ben had landed in, he almost missed the icy cold wind that sprung up and whipped around the cave. He and the cyclops both lifted their heads at the same time, looking for the source of the gale. Hux’s cage swung and creaked.

Below him, Ben rolled onto his hands and knees and Hux had never felt such intense relief in his life. Ben coughed, spat blood onto the cave floor, and climbed shakily to his feet while the cyclops peered dumbly at the ceiling.

“Oi!” Ben’s voice was hoarse and angry, and Hux found himself peering down at him in stunned disbelief. What did he think he was going to _do_ exactly? He hadn’t even bothered picking Hux’s sword back up. “Let. Him. Down.”

The cyclops scowled and wordlessly reached for Ben.

A huge twister of air appeared at the tips of its fingers and it yanked its hand back like it had been burned. It stared at its hand and Hux watched Ben’s chest heaving.

“What you doing to the wind?” the cyclops demanded, voice thick with dim, animal fear.

Ben spat another globule of blood onto the cave floor and said, “Whatever the fuck I want.”

And Hux suddenly realized exactly why Kylo Ren had always managed to elude him, how the wind and the tide always seemed to be on his side, how a storm that should have sunk his ship had only crippled it, how no matter how favorable the weather Hux could just _never_ catch up--

“Let him down!” Ben screamed. The rotted animal furs were flapping against the floor. The sun was growing dim at the cave entrance. Ben seemed to be the eye of a miniature storm-- the wind screamed around him, lifted heavy furs and rolls of kindling from the floor, but his hair and his clothes barely fluttered at all. Hux realized in a detached sort of way that there was an unknotted rope at Ben's feet.

The cyclops’ face curled in fury and fear, and he reached out again. Ben twisted his fingers and took a step back, but the little tornado he created wasn’t a threat when it wasn’t a surprise. The cyclops swatted through it with one huge hand and tried to grab Ben in its monstrous fist. Hux screamed his name again without meaning to as he saw those enormous fingers cage around Ben’s body and start to close. He’d be squished like putty, nothing but blood and bone and pulpy mess. Hux couldn’t watch; he couldn’t look away.

A huge flash of light nearly blinded him, and was followed instantly by the loudest crack of thunder Hux had ever heard. He saw rather than heard the cyclops howl in pain, and it yanked its hand back, clutching it to its chest. Hux smelled burnt meat and ozone.

Ben stood in the middle of a huge web of blackened stone, one hand thrown up to block his face. There were sparks still dancing at his fingertips and for one vertiginous moment, Hux felt his heart skip, fall into his stomach, with pure instinctual terror. Ben’s warm brown eyes had gone black (Hux could swear he saw fire in them) and looking at him was like standing with his toes pressed up to a cliff, staring at the water below. Wondering what it would be like to jump.

The cave was suddenly, horribly quiet. Every line of Ben’s body oozed danger as his hands curled into fists and he took one hulking step forward. The cyclops flinched and Ben’s thick lips, so typically quirked in a charming smile, cracked into a smirk so vicious it actually made Hux a little nauseated. He’d come to think of Ben as harmless, a gentle giant who wove sandals and smiled when Hux cursed. He’d almost forgotten where Ben had come from. Who he was.

Ben took another step forward, and Hux jerked in his cage, sent one half of the slat he’d broken tumbling to the cave floor.

Ben’s dark eyes jumped up, caught Hux’s gaze, and held it.

Hux watched Ben’s face fall, watched the darkness seep from his eyes and the threat fall out of him. When he blinked, he was Ben again. Just Ben. Hux wet his lips. Just Ben.

“Let him go,” he said softly, making the cyclops jerk as it tried unsuccessfully to huddle in its corner on its fetid bed.

The cyclops started babbling so fast Hux could barely understand it. But he did hear, “Sorry, mister magic witch, sorry, mister witch soup,” and a whole range of similar nonsense as it lifted the cage Hux was in off of whatever hook held it up. It set the cage down on the ground as close as it dared beside Ben before it scurried back into its corner and waited for them to leave.

Hux had to squeeze his eyes shut when the cyclops moved the cage to avoid being sick-- it wasn’t exactly a smooth ride. When he opened them, Ben was working open the tie that held the door closed-- it was a huge knot in a rope the size of Hux’s forearm and after about thirty seconds of trying to loosen it, Ben jerked the sword from the ground at his feet with his left hand and cut the rope in two. His right arm, Hux realized with a horrible sinking sensation, was hanging listlessly at his side.

Ben swung the door open and held out his left hand. Hux stared at it, mind a sudden white blank.

“Come on!” Ben hissed out of the corner of his mouth. “I’d rather not hang around, yeah?”

Hux took his hand.

Hux didn’t properly recall how they got outside the cave. One minute Ben was pulling him from the cage, the next, they were scurrying through the trees, Millicent hot on their heels, trying to hold each other up as they ran.

“I should have known Ren had a witch on board,” Hux hissed when they were far enough away from the cave that they were no longer afraid of the cyclops giving chase. “Slimy, duplicitous--”

“Hey, I’m the reason you’re not soup right now, Admiral. Maybe you should be thanking me--”

“Oh, yes, thank you ever so much, Ben. Tell me, do you have any other secrets I should be _thanking_ you for?”

Ben grunted in anger, and stopped moving forward. He dumped Hux against a tree and Hux was furious to realize he couldn’t stand without the help.

“I could have left you to die!” Ben hissed, crowding Hux against the tree, baring his teeth. Hux blinked and the tree felt like it was tilting backwards. Why was Ben standing so close to him? “But I _didn’t,_ did I? I tracked you down, I saved your sorry ass, and I’m the only reason you’re not dead right now!” His left palm floated up to grip his right shoulder as he raged. Hux wet his lips.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he demanded, hating how airy his voice sounded, how weak. “We could have used power like yours-- fuck, the _storm--”_

“I helped us with the storm,” Ben threw back. “I spent the whole bloody gale tying up every little breeze that worked its way into our cave! If it wasn’t for me we never would have been able to keep a fire lit, or, or--”

“Tying--” Hux shook his head. “You’ve been knotting wind in the ropes.”

“Yes,” Ben snapped. “Since we got here. You didn’t think it wasn’t just a bit convenient how the wind is always blowing the smoke out of our faces for example? I’ve been helping us the whole damn time.”

Hux breathed out through his nose and when he inhaled, it was a blessedly familiar scent that reached him-- not cyclops stink, but the soft salty musk that clung to Ben’s skin when he’d been working all day. “You should have told me.” His voice was softer than he meant it to be, a little distant.

Ben huffed in bitter amusement. “Throwing that information around is a good way to wake up on fire. There’s a reason we’re so rare, you know. People don’t like magic that fucks with the weather.”

“Yes, but I’m--” Hux tried to spit out the word ‘reasonable,’ tried to explain to Ben that magic had never scared him, that his mother was a hedge witch, and magic was a tool, only as dangerous as its host. He tried to say all this but the world seemed to jump forward without taking him with it and when he caught back up, Ben was standing too close again, one huge hand pressed to Hux’s collarbone, almost at the base of his throat. Hux’s head lolled; he could feel his own heart beating under Ben’s palm.

“Hux?”

It was amazing how gently he could speak. Like he was whispering to a kitten. But hadn’t Hux just seen him black eyed and vicious, about to rain devastation on that idiot creature in the cave? How could that man and this one-- how could they possibly--

The world jumped forward without him again and when Hux opened his eyes, he was staring down at the ground, one arm hanging limply below him. This time when the world jumped, he didn’t follow.

 

Kylo cursed the whole way back to their grotto. Of course Hux had to lose consciousness. Of course Kylo had to sling a grown man over his shoulders twenty minutes after he’d been slammed into a wall so hard his feet left the grown. He couldn’t even raise his right arm to hold Hux in place; his legs kept slipping off Kylo’s shoulders.

He still carried him though. Still raced back across the island as quickly as he could, gasping for breath, whole body on fire. He could feel Hux’s blood running down his own arm.

By the time he dropped Hux from his back onto the pile of leaves and old canvas Hux called a bed, the admiral was pale and sweat drenched. Kylo leaned panting against the cliff face and stared down at him.

Hux had a black eye and a fat lip-- a purpling bruise on his right cheek that looked tender and puffy, and a split just to the left of the bow in his upper lip. Minor injuries. They made Kylo grit his teeth in a spike of fury and a single spark crawled across his lips before he licked it away.

It was Hux’s leg that was truly worrying. It still oozed blood and when Kylo tore Hux’s breeches back to see it, his stomach turned. His leg was stiff with flaking blood. Kylo didn’t want to think about what sort of horrible infection Hux had probably caught from the cyclops’ mouth.

Instead, he wedged his good hand under Hux’s shoulders and pulled him up, used his bad hand to tilt a shell of water to his lips. “Hux,” he muttered, shaking him gently. Millicent mewled pitifully from where she watched at Hux’s side. “Come on, Hux, wake up.” Hux’s eyelids fluttered. “Wake up,” Kylo muttered again. Some of the water dribbled onto Hux’s chin into the thick red beard he’d grown over the weeks, and he finally blinked blearily up at Kylo. There was a moment of silence as his eyes cleared, as he realized Kylo was holding him up, trying to get him to drink. He swallowed.

“Can you sit up? I need to get you in the water. We need to clean your leg.”

“You carried me all the way back here.”

“Like I was going to leave you?” Kylo muttered. He set the shell down and twisted his fingers in Hux’s tunic. “Get this off, let’s get you cleaned up.”

“Get off me,” Hux snapped. He shoved Kylo away and sat up fully, hands moving to his hips and fisting in his shirt. Kylo watched the blood drain out of his face and had to reach forward to steady him. When his eyes cleared again, Hux glared at him.

Kylo shrugged. “Blood loss.” He let Hux wrestled his own shirt off and then helped him stand enough that they could totter to the water’s edge. Neither of them mentioned Hux’s torn and bloodied breeches-- Kylo had ripped them enough that he could access the injury without removing them and something told him if he tried to take Hux’s pants off he’d lose a hand in the process.

Hux whimpered like a kicked dog when he lowered himself into the water. Kylo let him lean back tiredly against the stone rim of the pool and tried to gently brush away the caked blood on his thigh. Hux jumped under Kylo’s hands.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he snapped, pain making his voice sound ragged and breathy.

“Sit still,” Kylo said as firmly as he could. His heart was in his throat. This was bad. This was incredibly bad. The bite was deep and jagged, caked with dirt and gods knew what else.

Hux was staring at the darkening sky, head falling back on his long neck when he said softly, “How bad is it?”

“You’ll be fine,” Kylo lied.

“Liar.”

Kylo licked his lips, swallowed. “Tell me what to do.”

Hux shrugged one shoulder and then winced. “I make balm for cuts,” he muttered. “What do I know.”

“You fixed my shoulder,” Kylo insisted. “That was more than a little cut.”

“A clean wound with naught but a few splinters to complicate things.” Hux’s voice was getting airier, his chest fluttering. “Bites are different.” Kylo saw his tongue dart out to wet his dry lips. “You did it better than me. When you. My feet.”

“Fuck,” Kylo hissed under his breath. Hux was going to pass out again. Kylo didn’t know why but something told him he shouldn’t let that happen. Something told him if Hux passed out again he wouldn’t wake back up.

“Hmm?”

“Come on, come on, get out of the water,” Kylo said frantically, splashing around to grip Hux under the arms and tug him back onto dry stone. Hux muttered some faint protest and Kylo dropped to his knees beside him, shook him by the shoulder. “Hux, come on, open your eyes.”

He did, but he didn’t look at Kylo. He just stared up at the sky.

“Alright,” Kylo said firmly. “Alright, I’m going to. I’m going to try something. Just. Just hold on.”

“ _Try_ something.” Hux was clearly trying to sound scathing but it just came out thin and pained. Kylo couldn’t resist the small smile that pulled at his lips. Of course Hux was trying his damndest to be a complete ass.

“Yes, try something,” he repeated. “I’m not a healer. Really, but I can. Maybe. Listen, just sit still and be quiet and _don’t_ fall asleep,” Kylo added. “I need you awake to tell me if everything. Feels alright.”

“This is very reassuring,” Hux muttered. But his shoulders went limp against the stone and he sighed in resignation. Kylo saw one long finger on his right hand tapping the stone nervously, fluttering against the ground like a dying moth.

Kylo looked down at the awful bite and breathed out slowly. He’d have to focus for this, _really_ focus. He’d tried to learn how to do all this when he was a boy, when his parents had first realized he had his uncle’s so called _gifts._ They made him train. Uncle Luke had forced him to sit in silence for hours, picturing all his magic as a little tiny ball in the center of his chest that he could expand or contract at will. It had been agonizing. And his little ball had always shot off sparks, no matter how hard he tried to keep it smooth and controlled.

When he’d run, when he’d left all that behind, he’d stopped trying to _control_ it. Had just learned to direct it. Like digging a trench for a stream instead of trying to patch up the hole. His eyes drifted closed and he pictured the little marble of power for the first time in years. It was jagged and crawling with lighting. Always crawling with lightning. He’d been grown the first time he called down a fork of fire from the air. It had been an accident. Luke had looked at him like he’d suddenly grown fangs.

The little ball stretched and bent and Kylo breathed out again. He forced Luke from his mind. He forced everything from his mind because nothing else mattered. If he didn’t do this, Hux would die.

Hux would die.

The little ball grew smooth. The sparks were still there, but Kylo could feel them, knew when they would come. Knew how to direct them. Once more, he filled his lungs, and very slowly, breathed back out.

 

Hux turned his head when he felt the air change. His cheek hit the stone and he stared at Ben, at his smooth, beautiful face and his too-big hands crossed and held out over Hux’s chest like he was guarding him. He watched the moment it happened. All the muscles in Ben’s face went slack at once, all the tension leaked from the corners of his eyes and trickled away down his back and Hux felt an awful chill crawl up his own spine for how utterly inhuman it was. He reminded Hux of the sirens. Or what he thought sirens looked like to most men. Deadly gorgeous like the sea and dangerously self-assured like a taut bowstring. Or a lit-fuse.

Hux licked his lips and felt electricity in the air, sharp and sudden, and suddenly Ben was holding blue sparks by the fistful. They flowed over his hands like water, dripped off into the air and fizzled away the moment they left his skin. He opened his eyes and they were black, like they’d been in the cave, but liquid too, like burning oil. Hux couldn’t look away.

He couldn’t actually follow the direction of Ben’s gaze because the pupil was invisible, drowning in the magic flowing through him. But Hux knew, somehow, when Ben’s glance flicked once to his face, and then down to his leg. Hux’s whole body tensed when Ben touched him. But he was gentle, his hands cool. Hux sighed audibly and loosened his shoulders against the stone.

“Am I hurting you?” Ben asked, voice very careful and controlled. It was so thick with power, it sounded like he was speaking through a pinwheel, like his voice was layered with all the electricity crawling down his arms.

“No,” Hux admitted, that single word somehow the most tender thing he’d ever spoken. Something was wrong. He could feel all the muscles in his leg getting looser, feel it flowing up his back and settling in his chest, feel the skin the cyclops had torn open cooling and tickling under Ben’s hands.

“How do you feel?”

“Good.” So good. He felt drunk with it.

Ben’s lips twitched once. The he turned his head sharply and looked at Hux’s face.

He jerked his hands away and shook them hard. All the color trickled out of his eyes until Hux could see his irises again, the horribly deep, warm, almost-black he’d come to know so well.

And then he felt all Ben’s power leave him and he was glad he was already laying down.

“Hux?”

“Hmm?”

“Are. Are you alright?”

“I think so,” Hux muttered back. “What did you do exactly?”

“I don’t know,” Ben admitted, voice softer than Hux had ever heard it. “But I think it worked. How’s your leg?”

Hux sat up and peered down at his torn breeches. His leg was scarred and bruised. He flexed his foot. “Better,” he admitted, unable to keep the surprise from his voice. “Weak. Sore. But.”

Ben sighed hugely and rolled down onto the stone. “Thank the gods.”

Hux snorted. “I don’t think they had much to do with it.” Ben didn’t say anything. It had grown dark. Hux’s stomach rumbled. “Thank you.”

“I shouldn’t have let you go to the beach by yourself,” Ben protested.

Hux snorted again. “I’m not a child, Ben.”

“It’s dangerous here. Neither of us should go anywhere alone. We’ve got to. Watch out for each other.”

Hux sighed. “How my tides have changed.”

“What do you mean?”

“Pirate,” Hux said by way of explanation.

Ben chuckled and turned his head; Hux heard his hair rustling against the stone. Hux turned his own head to look and realized how close they were laying. Ben’s feet were angled away from him, but if he tilted his head just so they could almost touch.

“Better than witch,” Ben said lightly.

Hux rolled his eyes and looked back at the sky. “No, I like that part of you. Bloody useful, that is.”

“Could be worse, I guess,” Ben muttered uncertainly.

“You’re strong, aren’t you.”

“Sea magic is always strong.”

“No. Not like you. I’ve seen sea witches. Watched a few hang even. They can tie the wind in knots and summon storms after days of meditation. I’ve never even heard of one. Calling lightning from their fingertips. Much less using it to heal someone.”

Ben didn’t say anything.

Hux stared at the stars and tried to hate Ben. He pictured his ridiculously crooked face and his patchy rags of facial hair, and his thick chest and arms and all his scars and tattoos and tried to call him ‘pirate,’ tried to make that mean something. But he couldn’t.

“Hux.”

“What?”

“You’ve got scars on your back.”

Hux felt something cold slither down his spine.

“What are they from?”

Hux cleared his throat. “Have I asked you about the remnants of every nick and scrape you’ve ever gotten?” he spat with as much venom as he could muster. It wasn’t nearly as much as he’d usually be capable of.

“You were whipped,” Ben said smoothly. Hux’s stomach flipped over. “Easy to recognize marks like that.”

“I’ve been a navy sailor since I was practically a child,” Hux muttered. “Corporal punishment is one of several types of. Behavior modification the Empire employs.”

Ben snorted. “So what’d ya do?”

Hux cleared his throat, cheeks burning, and said, “Shut up, Ben.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> KYLO'S A SEAWITCH Y'ALL (I mean he had to be right?)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am in wedding planning HELL right now you guys, it's all I can think about and as such it took me way longer to post this chapter than I meant for it to. But now I need a distraction, so please enjoy. <3 This is one of my favorite chapters in this story, tbh, so I'm very excited to share it with you.

Kylo sat in the shade of the cave and wove rope. The sun was high and the day was hot, hotter than it had been in weeks. Millicent was stretched across the stone at his side, and Hux was sitting under the waterfall with his arms thrown out catching the rim of stone that ran around the pool. He was shaded in the shadow of the cliff face. 

Hux had been different since the cyclops. He spoke more softly, more gently. He moved tenderly too, but that was easily explained by his still-healing leg. Kylo could feel Hux watching him sometimes, when he was stretching his sore arm and shoulder, or cleaning the sweat from his skin in the pool. If Kylo tried to look back, he’d look away, splotchy color high in his freckled cheeks, and run a hand through his hair.

It made Kylo’s chest clench every time it happened. The idea that Hux was scared of him seemed wrong, somehow. Kylo hated people being scared of him. It always happened after they saw his magic. It was why he only ever used it when his crew was in dire straits, when it was either do something or die. And they were always quiet around him for days after. 

Hux had also stopped hiding his back. Kylo hadn’t realized until he was pulling Hux’s shirt off, until he’d put his hand on Hux’s back to help him, that he’d never seen the thin stripes cutting across his wiry shoulders. He hadn’t fully acknowledged them until he was sure Hux was alright, and then curiosity had gotten the better of him. He should have known Hux wouldn’t tell him what had happened, not when he’d taken such pains to conceal them. He hadn’t realized how careful Hux had been not to put his back to Kylo until he stopped doing it. 

He’d seen the scars more clearly since that night. There weren’t many of them--four, all laying across his shoulders, from the middle of the left side of his back up to his right shoulder. One curled over that shoulder, just a bit. And a fifth lay long across his back and crossed his spine; it stretched from right hip just to the left of his neck. The high collar on his admiral’s jacket would have hidden the raised skin on his neck perfectly. 

Kylo found the marks utterly fascinating. He hadn’t brought them up again. Hux’s embarrassment had been palpable. But he still couldn’t stop wondering what the eminently perfect Admiral Hux had done to get himself whipped. He’d been young when it happened-- Kylo had gathered that from Hux’s answer. But no matter how absurd Kylo allowed his musings to become, he couldn’t think of a reason for Hux being physically reprimanded that seemed even remotely plausible. 

Hux splashed to the edge of the pool and hoisted himself out. He’d grown thin. All his muscles and bones stood out stark and angular. He was the kind of man who would always be thin, no matter how strong he grew, no matter how well fed he was, but a steady diet of fish and coconut had made everything about him seem sharper. His hair was getting long and ragged, his beard growing bushy. 

And his skin. He’d stopped burning in the sun, mostly. His skin was brown with freckles. The splotches were heaviest over the bridge of his nose and on his shoulders. 

He stood on the rim of the pool, oblivious to Kylo’s unerring eyes, and leaned over the water to ring his hair out. The position made him curve a little, made his shoulders curl and his abdominals contract. Kylo almost absently let his eyes track over the lines, follow the flex of his arms to the tight clench of his stomach, and then to the arrow of his hips, drawing the eye inexorably down to--

Kylo dropped his eyes to his rope work, cheeks suddenly burning and a treacherous swelling between his thighs. 

It was natural, he told himself. The admiral was a young man, an attractive man, but more importantly, the only other person around. It was only natural, that during his most bored wonderings, Kylo’s mind might muse upon impossibilities. It meant nothing.

He lifted his head finally, chanced a glance, and saw Hux sitting on his bed, his airy tunic thrown across his lap for modesty. He’d donned nothing else against the heat. As Kylo watched, he lifted a length of rope and, just as Kylo had taught him, started to weave.

 

*** 

 

It had been a quiet day. Ben had seemed distant, lost in thought, and Hux had never minded quietude-- even prefered it, most of the time. He wove rope and dozed and tried not to stare at Ben every chance he got. It was harder than he would have liked it to be. 

Ben’s healing had brought with it revelation. 

Hux had always known Ben was disconcertingly handsome. He had the kind of build that people stared at. But Hux had been able to ignore it, to tell himself the strangeness of Ben’s face ruined rather than enhanced his physique. He’d been able to shove it all to the back of his mind and pretend he didn’t notice. 

But Ben’s magic had pulled something out of him-- or perhaps the pain from the bite, the heart pounding terror of the day had just broken down all his defenses so there was nowhere left in his mind for his true thoughts on the matter to hide. 

Ben was beautiful. Heart achingly so. 

Hux was used to ignoring beautiful men. Five lashes had been enough to convince him there were more important things than beauty and attraction. 

But before, he’d had work to distract him, had pirates to chase and a sea to sail and men to command and a ship to steer. 

Now, he had nothing. 

Boredom was not a feeling Hux was used to dealing with. He wasn’t sure he had ever slept so much in his life. And with the heat of the day, he’d started sleeping at odd hours, waking halfway through the night and being unable to fall back asleep. 

Tonight when he awoke, it was to a hot pulse in his gut and one hand clenched between his knees. He was on his side, back to the pool and facing the cliff face. When the weather permitted, which was most days, he slept under the sky. The cave floor, even with the layers of dead palm fronds and old canvas, was too hard on his thin back. 

His cheeks burned with shame because he was out in the open instead of locked behind the private door of his captain’s quarters. He knew no one could see him-- Ben usually slept in the cave and he was the only one around-- but the response was ingrained, reflexive. When he was a teenager, he’d had no privacy, had slept in a room full of sailors. He hadn’t been truly alone until he’d been promoted enough to merit his own private room. Even then, on the rare occasion when his overworked mind chanced to dream, he still awoke with a horrible lurch of embarrassment, gaze searching for the taunting eyes and snickering lips of low ranking sailors so beaten down themselves they ached for a chance to bully the thin cabin boy who was also the captain’s despised bastard son. 

Hux had some scars he could see, and others he couldn’t. 

He couldn’t remember the dream, but when he searched for it, his brain instead supplied him with a vision of the only other person he’d set his sights on in months. Ben seemed even bigger now than he did when they crashed. Hux knew it wasn’t true, knew Ben had actually  _ lost  _ weight, as had Hux, but when he was stretching his muscles, when his naked chest was dripping with sweat, when it flowed down all the little dips in his skin, all the statuesque lines of him, Hux couldn’t help but think of figureheads and marble carvings, bigger and more perfect than any real man could be. 

This island was going to drive him to complete and utter madness. It was already happening-- he could tell because when he tried to turn his mind to literally anything else, he instead thought of the way Ben bit his lip when he was very focused on his weavings and  how thick and well formed those lips actually were. 

Hux cursed to himself, out loud, but quietly in the dark. It was only a supreme effort of will that kept him from palming himself through his breeches, even as his stomach churned with his own complete and utter foolishness. If only he’d been tossed ashore with one of his own sailors. With someone less attractive. Hell. A woman would have been infinitely better than Ben; Hux had no problem keeping his wits about him around women. But no. Instead, the gods had seen fit to test him in the most infuriating way. 

Not that there was much to test. 

Hux had seen the way Ben had gone racing after those sirens. Hux had seen how Ben never once looked at him the way Hux looked back. It was nothing to Ben, that they were trapped here alone. There was nothing in Hux that Ben found at all tempting. And why would he? They were sworn enemies. They were made to hate each other. And Hux had gone out of his way to make himself easy to hate. 

The thought would have been comforting if Hux hadn’t been incredibly convinced that if he wasn’t careful, he would do something incredibly stupid. 

 

***

 

They finished the rope ladder. Kylo dragged it over and dropped it at the base of the cliff, peered up the rock face. Neither of them was strong enough to make the climb. Hux still couldn’t put his full weight on his leg and Kylo was back to being incapable of lifting his arm over his head. They were grounded, for now. 

“You really think this will work?” Kylo asked softly. These were the first words they’d spoken in hours; Hux had been avoiding him, had refused to meet his eyes, had found every excuse to be away from him, and Kylo was sickened to admit to himself how much he hated it. 

“We have to try,” Hux replied, voice lifting very slightly at the end. Kylo tried to infer his meaning.  _ Don’t we?  _

Or perhaps  _ Must we? _

No. That was just wishful thinking.

He almost laughed aloud. Wishful thinking. As if this awful purgatory was somehow more, somehow better than what had come before. Of course, their lives had narrowed down to a few salient points. Food. Water. Shelter. Not loathing one another. Things were simpler now, in a strange, twisted sort of way. There wasn’t a ship full of men looking to him for direction, and protection. He didn’t have a faceless bloodhound of a man ruthlessly stalking him over every sea, always one foul wind away from wrapping his hands around Kylo’s throat. 

He wasn’t faceless anymore. He was beautiful. He was everything Kylo loved about the sea. Mercurial. Merciless. With darkness like the deepest trenches in the blackest oceans overlaid by deceptive placidity. Kylo could not read his mind, and he wanted to. With every spark in his windswept soul, he wanted to see everything Hux was. But every time he looked, he saw nothing but black water. 

“You’re staring at me,” Hux said aloud, an edge of disgust in his voice, and his cheeks furiously red. He left Kylo standing at the bottom of the cliff, shamefully wishing they could go back, that he could hide himself away again if only to coax Hux back out. 

The disgust in his eyes had been unbearable, undeniable, and impossible to misconstrue. It hissed,  _ Witch.  _

 

***

 

At the end of the week, it stormed, and Hux had to shelter in the cave. 

Ben wouldn’t look at him. Hux kept stealing glances, heart in his throat, and found every time that Ben was coldly focused on his work, on tying so many innumerable knots. 

_ He’s heard it,  _ Hux thought, shame bursting in his chest like a hurricane, sudden and violent. He’d heard Hux wake up in a cold sweat, Ben’s name on his lips and his hands between his legs. He’d heard Hux’s quiet gasps in the earliest hours of the morning, when the dreams were too much, so much he ached everywhere, and nowhere so sorely as in the center of his chest. He’d heard Hux, with a quiet moan, spill himself into the grass, facing the cave wall with his eyes squeezed shut and utter horror pulsing in his veins. Hux had tried to be quiet. He’d tried so hard. 

He opened his mouth to speak,  _ I’m sorry  _ and  _ Do you hate me?  _ on his lips before he realized what he was doing. Instead he called Ben  _ witch  _ and  _ pirate  _ and  _ criminal _ and  _ traitor  _ and still a voice in his head whispered back  _ he came for you.  _ And worse, his thoughts spiralling as they so often did when he had nothing over which to obsess,  _ he could come for you.  _

Hux wet his lips. 

_ In you on you for you just you only _

“You’re scared of me, aren’t you?” 

Hux looked up, startled, and found Ben staring blackly at his knot work. 

Hux considered. And then he said, very softly, “Yes.” 

“I’d never hurt you.” 

Hux laughed without meaning to and spoke before he knew what he was going to say. “You’d never mean to.”

Ben’s fingers paused on his work, and when they resumed their twisting, some of the clouds had cleared from his face. 

It was the first words they’d really spoken to each other in days. Somehow, Hux couldn’t help but think it was the first real thing he’d ever said to Ben-- but of course, he didn’t know. He thought Hux was scared of his magic, his power. 

Power had never scared Hux except for the ways someone could take it away. 

“Is that better?” Hux asked. 

Ben finally looked at him. 

“I don’t know,” Ben admitted. “But I’d rather you think me undisciplined than cruel.”

Hux looked away. “You’re not a cruel man.” 

“No?” Ben asked, voice so strange Hux had to turn back. His lip was quirked wryly, his eyes blacker than the storm clouds, as if to say, _ how would you know?  _ and  _ would you like to? _

“No,” Hux replied firmly. Cruelty was a weapon Hux wielded like a sword, a game he played with everybody around him, and like anybody in true possession of a skill, Hux recognized his own mastery in others. Hux knew cruelty. Ben did not. 

Ben looked at Hux almost wistfully. It made Hux’s heart ache. He looked down at his hands when Hux held his gaze too long, and then held out the rope he’d been knotting. Hux took it. 

“And what will you do?” Hux asked, peering at the familiar three knots. “If you get taken from me?” 

His heart plummeted into his guts and they pulled around it with fierce heat. He was bored. He was half delirious. He’d spent half a life time forcing himself to forget how this felt and now there was nothing safe to set his eyes on. Everywhere he looked he saw Ben. What the fuck had he just said? 

“That won’t happen,” Ben replied quietly, and Hux didn’t press him, too afraid that his tongue would keep running away from him, that he’d ruin everything. 

“Do they hurt?” 

Hux froze, realized he’d been rubbing at his shoulder, at the spot on his neck where the scar from the worst lash had inched above his collar. 

“No,” he said, dropping his hand. “They were well cared for. And. And not.” He swallowed. “Some men have been given much worse.” 

“What did you do?” Ben asked again. 

Hux peered out at the rain and felt his cheeks burning. He wanted to change the subject, refuse to answer, but there was that pesky voice in his head again, this time telling him,  _ an eye for an eye _ . You show me yours and I’ll show you mine. 

They’d spoken plainly. Hux was unwilling to stop it. 

“I was. When I was fifteen. I. I was caught with. A sailor. Another sailor.” 

Hux was staring at a spot on the wall, but he could see Ben’s face crinkling in his periphery. “It’s strictly forbidden,” he went on, “For two sailors to. It was his second offense. He was whipped and discharged. But I was young. With a spotless disciplinary record. So. Five lashes.” 

“For sleeping with--”

“It was only a kiss,” Hux said too quickly. 

Ben was shaking his head. “Those laws are never enforced,” he said incredulously. “I knew navy sailors, even had some in the crew. They really--?”

“I was assigned to my father’s ship,” Hux explained stiffly. “No infraction goes unpunished before Fleet Admiral Hux.” 

“You  _ father  _ did that to you?”

“No, of course not,” Hux said. “He only watched.” They all had. Hux had had his crime read in front of the whole ship, had listened to his father pass judgement on them both, had watched a grown man whipped to within an inch of his life, and only then, finally, had he been tied to the post himself. 

“Horrible,” Ben said softly. Hux almost flinched at the word, until he realized Ben was speaking not of his indiscretion, but rather of the punishments that had been meted out. “Who was he?” 

Hux was so surprised by the question, he actually turned and looked Ben full in the face. He stared until the words made sense, and then said with a non-plussed shrug, “He was nobody. I don’t even remember his name.” 

“You risked that for. Nobody?” Ben demanded. He didn’t believe Hux. 

Hux hadn’t thought about this in so long, had pushed it all to the back of his mind. He said very quietly, and very delicately, lest Ben shy from such deviance, “He had. Very. Very brown skin, and very brown eyes.” And then he added, “He was kind to me.” 

Ben’s gaze didn’t shift from Hux’s face and Hux squirmed once to clear his discomfort. 

He repeated softly, “He was kind to me.” 

“What happened to him?” 

“I don’t know,” Hux admitted. “I never saw him again. I never cared to.” 

“That’s why the sirens don’t affect you?” Ben said sharply, making Hux jump with the strange interest in his voice. “You don’t like women.”

“I like women,” Hux replied automatically. 

“Sexually,” Ben shot back, deadpan. 

Hux swallowed. “No.” 

Ben shook his head. “I never realized.” Hux looked up at him. “About the sirens, I mean,” he added. “I thought everybody felt it. I never put together…” He trailed off. Then he laughed. 

“What?”

“I guess I always thought it was my magic,” he went on, voice almost friendly. “Why I can fight them.” 

“What?” Hux said again, voice sharper than he meant it to be. 

“I’ve known men who would gladly impale themselves on their own swords to reach a siren, and men who have to stand still while they listen because if they move they’ll leap from the boat. And then me. And Poe,” he added as an afterthought. “Who can ignore them entirely, as long as we see them coming.” 

“They almost drowned you,” Hux argued, unable to calm the vicious burning in his chest. “I had to save you.”

Ben shrugged. “I was tired. Didn’t expect to hear them, got caught off guard.” 

“Poe,” Hux said, because he couldn’t make his brain work, couldn’t calm the electric feeling at the tips of his fingers. 

“Dameron,” Ben said in a conciliatory sort of voice. As if to say,  _ I know you hate him.  _ Then he sighed, the sound so wistful and so familiar Hux wondered how he could have possibly been so blind. 

“You were lovers.” 

Ben’s lips curled, as if Hux speaking the word hurt more than anything going on inside his head. “We were lovers,” he said. 

Hux’s voice came out as a harsh whisper, the only sound he could make, and he said, “I’m so sorry.” 

It was the first time he’d actually meant it.

Ben looked at him then, a strange, unbearably wet expression in his eyes, and Hux felt like he was staring into an open wound, like he could see all the flayed pieces of Ben’s soul laid out bare and he burned with the need to press them back together again, even as he acknowledged his was the blade that had done the carving. 

Ben finally dropped his gaze, and Hux  _ felt. _

He hated it. 

“So am I,” Ben said quietly. And then, even more softly, “I miss him.” 

Hux said nothing. What could he say?

The silence stretched. Finally, Ben asked, “Was there anybody? On your ship?”

“No,” Hux said quickly. “Never. Never again. Sailors don’t fraternize.” 

Ben’s beautiful lips lifted, just for a second. “You don’t have to lie to me, Admiral. I’m not holding a lash.” 

“I’m not lying,” Hux insisted stiffly. “Sailors don’t fraternize.” 

Ben lifted one of his brows and tilted his head back against the stone. “You know they do. All those men at sea for so long, all that skin and salt.” Hux looked away because there was a low, insistant quality to Ben’s voice, insinuating itself into his ears, coiling around his shoulders and brushing his cheeks. 

Hux shook his head. “It was a moment of weakness in a child, not a forecast for what was to come.”

“And what about the men on your crew?” Ben demanded, his words taking on a chilly tone that still wound its way, somehow, into all the secret places Hux wondered what it would feel like to be touched. “Did you whip them? Turn them off.” 

“No.” 

It was the first time in his life Hux had ever admitted it outloud. His sailors had been impeccably trained. They’d followed every rule, every law to the letter, and the few times Hux had disciplined a man for breaking those laws had been enough to deter the others. 

But when Finn had said to him in whispered tones that the coxswain had caught two new recruits hiding together in the hold, when Mitaka had forgotten himself completely and absently brushed the hair off Thanisson’s forehead while the four of them (Finn included) had shared a glass of brandy after a successful mission, when Hux had walked into the galley and found his own officers with their hands in each other’s shirts, he’d gone silent, turned around, and walked away. 

Ben stared at him as the rain fell, and Hux released the last tenuous holds he had on his sanity when he said, so quietly he wasn’t sure he’d actually spoken the treason in his heart, “Sometimes, the law is wrong.” 

Ben was silent for a long time, and Hux could feel Ben’s eyes on his face. Hux knew what was happening, knew Ben, who always pried, was afraid to speak, afraid to push Hux into moody silence after such a dishonorable declaration. 

The silence was worse than anything Ben could have possibly said, because Hux’s mind started to spool away from him with understanding.  _ It’s not the sirens. It’s not that he cares for women. He hates you for you, for everything you are in complete opposition to everything he is.  _ Hux’s excuse had drifted away, the insistent, shameful thing he told himself to quell the fluttering beating of hope, that Ben was not  _ that type  _ of man. He wished he’d never said anything, never teased out this revelation because it had changed nothing but motivation. Ben still could hardly stand to look at Hux. Ben liked men. Ben just didn’t like  _ him.  _

He was such a fool, ruminating on  _ like,  _ on  _ what if,  _ on  _ please.  _

Boredom, he told himself. Boredom did strange things to a man. That was all this was. 

“Never thought I’d hear you say that,” Ben said finally. 

Hux shrugged, refused to look at him. “You never will again.” 

“You’re right though.” 

“I know I am.” He turned his head when Ben’s gaze made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. “What?”

“Are you ever wrong?”

Hux snorted so he didn’t say what he was thinking.  _ I was wrong about you.  _

“What’s it like to be that sure of yourself?” 

Hux felt himself smiling, the expression painful in its fondness.  _ Fondness.  _ Gods, what was wrong with him? “You ask that as if you don’t know.” 

“I have no idea what that feels like,” Ben replied very seriously. Then his voice got very soft. “I’ve never done a single thing worthwhile that I haven’t wondered if I made the right choice.”

_ Weak, he’s weak, look at him-- _ This voice was louder, more insistent, screaming the things Hux wished he believed.  

“My family loved me, you know,” Ben continued. “I could have been someone.”

Hux scoffed. “For a man so obsessed with freedom, you should know you’d never have been content in a gilded cage.” 

“What do you regret, Hux?” 

Hux’s impulse, again, always, was to tell Ben to shut up, to stop his idiotic questions, to lie, deflect, ignore. But the low, shadowy way Ben had said his name.  _ Hux.  _ Like he was trying not to startle him. Hux had chills. 

“I regret following Ren into that channel,” he admitted. He’d never regretted anything more. “I ordered my men to face forward and sail to their own deaths, and they trusted me. So they did. They thought I had a plan. They thought I knew something they didn’t.” The heavy words did nothing to lessen the weight on Hux’s shoulders; if anything he only felt them more. “I killed them.”  

The cave was suddenly stifling and Hux couldn’t breathe. 

He stood up. “Excuse me.” 

And walked out into the rain. 

 

***

 

Kylo followed him before he could think better of it, left his knots and his dignity and his cowardice lying on the stone. 

“Hux, wait!” 

Hux froze in the pouring rain, already drenched through. His hair had waves to it, now that it was longer. They were flattened by the water that ran in rivulets into the hair on his chin; he’d turned his head just enough that even with his back to Kylo, Kylo could see the shell of his ear, the sensual slope of his jaw beneath the vivid fire of his beard. 

“You’re not the only one with blood on your hands,” he said without thinking. “I’m.” And then he froze too. 

Hux could never know. Kylo could never tell him. If Hux knew, he’d never-- but maybe, maybe this way, they could--

Kylo put his hand out and his fingers landed on Hux’s shoulder. He could feel the raised lashes under the heel of his hand. Hux was so still, Kylo could tell he wasn’t breathing. The realization sent a jolt through his skin, something deep and hidden in him connecting intrinsically to the skin under his hand before his brain could fathom what had happened, what had changed. 

And something had changed.

A single blue spark appeared at his fingertips and crawled all over his hand and wrist before it landed against the skin at Hux’s collar. Hux jumped at the same time Kylo wrenched away, a full bodied shudder raising Hux’s white and freckled skin into gooseflesh. He turned and stared at Kylo, lips parted, puckered even, and so pink and round against the wild orange of his beard. Wet from the rain. 

The space between them felt charged, made Kylo’s hair stand on end the way it always did just before a bolt of lightning struck, and it pulled him forward magnetically, the energy too much to resist now, not when Kylo was so  _ tired,  _ not when they had both spent so many weeks so horribly alone.

Hux shot away from him the second his hand lifted, the second he tried to close the distance, and Kylo stood frozen, incapable of believing what he’d been about to do, to whom he’d intended to do it. His hand hovered in the spot where Hux’s ear had been, his fingers curved softly, perfect for carding into bright ginger hair. 

“What are you doing?” Hux demanded, voice appalled and face inscrutable, but thoroughly stunned. 

Kylo wanted to say  _ Can’t you feel it?  _ and  _ You crossed oceans for me  _ and simply  _ please. Hux. Please.  _

Instead he whispered under the pounding rain a single plea, a reassurance. Hux didn’t have to be ashamed. No one would know. “We’re the only ones here. Just you and me.” 

Hux’s eyes went glacial, the impossible ocean blue freezing into fury. Kylo had said the wrong thing. A very, very wrong thing. 

“I have been nothing in my life if not inconvenient,” Hux spat and Kylo didn’t understand at all. But before he could make his tongue work, Hux went on, “And I won’t start now. Find another diversion.” 

“Wait,” Kylo said desperately, reaching for him helplessly. He’d danced along the edge of this moment, had pushed and stretched it until it had broken. “Hux, please--” 

“Find something else to distract you,” he hissed, yanking his hand out of Kylo’s reach. “I won’t be your  _ waste of time _ .” And then he was gone, stalking back to his spot in the dark clearing. Kylo knew he wasn’t far, knew neither of them were really alone, but with the rain and the storm and the night, Kylo couldn’t see him at all. 

And no matter how much he wanted to, he knew he couldn’t follow. 


End file.
